Atmospheric methane concentration time series data:
See figure 2 of: http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/aggi/
Note that methane concentrations are leveling off,
unlike the fractions of other greenhouse gases.
-.-. --.- Roger
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Public release date: 27-Sep-2006

Contact: Dr Simon Torok

CSIRO Australia
Explaining the methane mystery

Scientists have explained why atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas
methane have stabilised

Scientists have explained why atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas
methane have stabilised in recent years, but warn that increases could
resume in the near future.

In research published in Nature this week, an international team of
scientists - including CSIRO researchers - has shown that it was a
decline in emissions of methane from human activities in the 1990s that
resulted in the recent slower growth of methane in the global
atmosphere.

Since 1999, however, sources of methane from human activities have
again increased, but their effect on the atmosphere has been
counteracted by a reduction in wetland emissions of methane over the
same period.

According to one of the authors of the Nature paper, Dr Paul Steele
from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, prolonged drying of
wetlands - caused by draining and climate change - has resulted in
a reduction in the amount of methane released by wetlands, masking the
rise in emissions from human activities.

"Had it not been for this reduction in methane emissions from wetlands,
atmospheric levels of methane would most likely have continued rising,"
he says.

"This suggests that, if the drying trend is reversed and emissions from
wetlands return to normal, atmospheric methane levels may increase
again, worsening the problem of climate change."

The researchers used computer simulations of how the gas is transported
in the atmosphere to trace back to the source of methane emissions,
based on the past 20 years of atmospheric measurements.

The results indicate that a reduction and/or more efficient use of
natural gas in the Northern Hemisphere was largely responsible for the
drop in methane emissions in the 1990s, and that the more recent
increase stemmed from strongly increasing emissions from fossil fuel
use in north Asia.

The scientists also showed how changes in emissions from wetlands and,
to a lesser extent, bushfires, accounted for variations in atmospheric
methane from year to year.

The research is expected to help reduce uncertainties in future
projections of climate change and to help design effective strategies
to reduce methane emissions from human activities.

To date, reductions in major sources of methane from human activities
include improved piping of natural gas and the capture of methane from
landfill sites to generate electricity.

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after carbon
dioxide and is estimated to have been responsible for a fifth of the
enhanced greenhouse effect over the past 200 years. In addition to
emissions from natural wetlands and many other natural sources, human
activities including agriculture and the mining and use of fossil fuels
produce large amounts of the gas.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releas...-etm092606.php