Methane Emission From Global Lakes: New Spatiotemporal Data and Observation-Driven Modeling of Methane Dynamics...

Lakes have been highlighted as one of the largest natural sources of the greenhouse gas methane (CH₄) to the atmosphere. However, global estimates of lake CH₄ fluxes over the last 20 years exhibit widely different results ranging from 6 to 185 Tg CH₄ yr^-1, which is to a large extent driven by differences in lake areas and thaw season lengths used. This has generated uncertainty regarding both lake fluxes and the global CH₄ budget. This study constrains global lake water CH₄ emissions by using new information on lake area and distribution and CH₄ fluxes distinguished by major emission pathways; ecoclimatic lake type; satellite-derived ice-free emission period length; and diel- and temperature-related seasonal flux corrections. We produced gridded data sets at 0.25° latitude × 0.25° longitude spatial resolution, representing daily emission estimates over a full annual climatological cycle, appropriate for use in global CH₄ budget estimates, climate and Earth System Models, bottom-up biogeochemical models, and top-down inverse model simulations. Global lake CH₄ fluxes are 41.6 ± 18.3 Tg CH₄ yr^-1 with approximately 50% of the flux contributed by tropical/subtropical lakes. Strong temperature-dependent flux seasonality and satellite-derived freeze/thaw dynamics limit emissions at high latitudes. The primary emission pathway for global annual lake fluxes is ebullition (23.4 Tg) followed by diffusion (14.1 Tg), ice-out and spring water-column turnover (3.1 Tg), and fall water-column turnover (1.0 Tg). These results represent a major contribution to reconciling differences between bottom-up and top-town estimates of inland aquatic system emissions in the global CH₄ budget.