Emerging role of wetland methane emissions in driving 21st century climate change

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
• Main Authors: Zhang, Zhen, Zimmermann, Niklaus E., Stenke, Andrea, Li, Xin, Hodson, Elke L., Zhu, Gaofeng, Huang, Chunlin, Poulter, Benjamin
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: National Academy of Sciences 2017
• Subjects: Biological Sciences; permafrost
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5594636/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28827347; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1618765114

Conventional greenhouse gas mitigation policies ignore the role of global wetlands in emitting methane (CH4) from feedbacks associated with changing climate. Here we investigate wetland feedbacks and whether, and to what degree, wetlands will exceed anthropogenic 21st century CH4 emissions using an ensemble of climate projections and a biogeochemical methane model with dynamic wetland area and permafrost. Our results reveal an emerging contribution of global wetland CH4 emissions due to processes mainly related to the sensitivity of methane emissions to temperature and changing global wetland area. We highlight that climate-change and wetland CH4 feedbacks to radiative forcing are an important component of climate change and should be represented in policies aiming to mitigate global warming below 2°C.