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Can Stable Isotopes and Global Budgets Be Used to Constrain Atmospheric Methane Budgets?

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Atmospheric Methane

Abstract

Global climate change associated with the increasing atmospheric methane burden is an important societal concern. Today we can monitor with good precision the yearly 1% rise in lower tropospheric methane mixing ratios (e.g., Blake and Rowland, 1988), and we have adequate, basic global coverage of atmospheric methane latitudinal variation. Mesoscopically, we are able to roughly estimate the various source strengths, e.g., from wetlands, agriculture, fossil fuels, but there is considerable uncertainty in the actual magnitudes of the various individual fluxes of methane across the geosphere-biosphere-atmosphere interface. This knowledge deficit includes our understanding of both release and uptake process-groups. Control of methane emissions to the atmosphere requires that we reliably characterize these source-sink relationships.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3500, Victoria, B.C., V8W 3P6, Canada

    Michael J. Whiticar

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  1. Michael J. Whiticar
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  1. Department of Physics, Portland State University, P.O. Box 751, 97207-0751, Portland, OR, USA

    Mohammad Aslam Khan Khalil

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Whiticar, M.J. (2000). Can Stable Isotopes and Global Budgets Be Used to Constrain Atmospheric Methane Budgets?. In: Khalil, M.A.K. (eds) Atmospheric Methane. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04145-1_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04145-1_5

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-08451-5

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