Estimating wetland CH₄ emissions on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau based on a processed model coupled with inundation...

Quantifying the impacts of climate change and wetland area dynamics on methane (CH₄) emissions in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) is crucial for enhancing our understanding of regional and global CH₄ budgets. However, a major source of uncertainty in estimating wetland methane emissions stems from the limited delineation of wetland area dynamics. In this study, we integrated dynamic wetland inundation schemes into a process-based model to quantify the contributions of wetland area variations to natural wetland CH₄ emissions on the QTP, both historically and in the future. The results revealed that climate change significantly influenced the spatiotemporal distribution of wetland CH₄ emissions, with wetland inundation dynamics contributing between 21.84 % and 27.18 % of the increase in CH₄ emissions from 1960 to 2020. Under future climate change scenarios, wetland CH₄ emissions are projected to exhibit a more pronounced increasing trend, with wetland inundation dynamics projected to contribute 18.94 % to 21.80 % of the increase in CH₄ emissions in the QTP under seven Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios.