"The remaining question, though, was where all this methane was coming from in the first place. Throughout the pandemic, there was speculation that the surge might be caused by super-emitter events in the oil and gas sector, or perhaps a lack of maintenance on leaky infrastructure during lockdowns. But the new research suggests that the source of these emissions was not what many expected. The microbial surge"
"While the weakened atmospheric sink explained the bulk of the 2020 surge, it wasn't the only factor at play. The remaining 20 percent of the growth, and an even larger portion of the growth in 2021 and 2022, came from an increase in actual emissions from the ground. To track the source of these emissions down, Peng's team went through tons of data from satellites and various ground monitoring stations."
"When the researchers analyzed data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration global flask network, a worldwide monitoring system tracking the chemical composition of Earth's atmosphere, they found that the atmospheric methane during the mysterious surge was becoming significantly lighter. This was a smoking gun for biogenic sources. The surge wasn't coming from pipes or power plants; it was coming from microbes."
A weakened atmospheric methane sink explained the majority of the 2020 global methane surge by reducing methane oxidation and allowing concentrations to rise. Additional ground emissions accounted for about 20% of the 2020 increase and a larger share in 2021–2022. Isotopic measurements showed atmospheric methane became lighter, indicating biogenic sources such as wetlands, landfills, and livestock rather than fossil-fuel leaks. An extended La Niña produced unusually wet tropical conditions across 2020–2023, enhancing wetland emissions. Satellite observations and ground monitoring corroborated increased wetness and elevated biogenic methane emissions during the early 2020s.
Read at Ars Technica
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