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Updated: Jul 1, 2026

Design and Use of a Full Flow Sampling System (FFS) for the Quantification of Methane Emissions
Published on: June 12, 2016
Observation-constrained sensitivities of Arctic methane emissions to warming
Gang Liu1, Shushi Peng1, Lu Shen2
1Institute of Carbon Neutrality, Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, and Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
None:
The sensitivity of pan-Arctic (60 to 90°N) natural methane emissions to climate warming lacks direct observational constraints. Long-term atmospheric measurements of methane, which reflect integrated Arctic fluxes and atmospheric transport, show that in the pan-Arctic the autumn-to-winter CH4 build-up (as indicated by the "autumn zero crossing date") is becoming earlier. This advancing trend in autumn zero crossing date is explained by growing natural Arctic CH4 emissions in response to climate warming in July, August and September, with a rate of increase of 0.14 ± 0.04 Tg CH4 y-2 during the period 1998-2020. Atmospheric δ13CCH4 observational records allowed us to attribute this increase to 0.08 ± 0.02 Tg CH4 y-2 from natural biogenic emissions (wetlands, lakes, permafrost soils) and 0.06 ± 0.02 Tg CH4 y-2 from wildfire emissions. Our results point to a larger warming sensitivity of natural emissions (3.1 ± 0.9 Tg CH4 y-1 per °C) than previous estimates, and potentially a larger positive feedback on climate warming.
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