Inventory of anthropogenic methane emissions in mainland China from 1980 to 2010

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Abstract

Abstract. Methane (CH4) has a 28-fold greater global warming potential than CO2 over 100 years. Atmospheric CH4 concentration has tripled since 1750. Anthropogenic CH4 emissions from China have been growing rapidly in the past decades and contribute more than 10% of global anthropogenic CH4 emissions with large uncertainties in existing global inventories, generally limited to country-scale statistics. To date, a long-term CH4 emission inventory including the major sources sectors and based on province-level emission factors is still lacking. In this study, we produced a detailed annual bottom-up inventory of anthropogenic CH4 emissions from the eight major source sectors in China for the period 1980–2010. In the past 3 decades, the total CH4 emissions increased from 24.4[18.6–30.5]TgCH4yr−1 in 1980 (mean [minimum–maximum of 95% confidence interval]) to 44.9 [36.6–56.4]TgCH4yr−1 in 2010. Most of this increase took place in the 2000s decade with averaged yearly emissions of 38.5 [30.6–48.3]TgCH4yr−1. This fast increase of the total CH4 emissions after 2000 is mainly driven by CH4 emissions from coal exploitation. The largest contribution to total CH4 emissions also shifted from rice cultivation in 1980 to coal exploitation in 2010. The total emissions inferred in this work compare well with the EPA inventory but appear to be 36 and 18% lower than the EDGAR4.2 inventory and the estimates using the same method but IPCC default emission factors, respectively. The uncertainty of our inventory is investigated using emission factors collected from state-of-the-art published literatures. We also distributed province-scale emissions into 0.1° × 0.1° maps using socioeconomic activity data. This new inventory could help understanding CH4 budgets at regional scale and guiding CH4 mitigation policies in China.

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Farming the planet: 2. Geographic distribution of crop areas, yields, physiological types, and net primary production in the year 2000

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Global atmospheric methane: budget, changes and dangers.

Edward J. Dlugokencky, Euan G. Nisbet, Rebecca Fisher … (2011)

A factor of 2.5 increase in the global abundance of atmospheric methane (CH(4)) since 1750 contributes 0.5 Wm(-2) to total direct radiative forcing by long-lived greenhouse gases (2.77 Wm(-2) in 2009), while its role in atmospheric chemistry adds another approximately 0.2 Wm(-2) of indirect forcing. Since CH(4) has a relatively short lifetime and it is very close to a steady state, reductions in its emissions would quickly benefit climate. Sensible emission mitigation strategies require quantitative understanding of CH(4)'s budget of emissions and sinks. Atmospheric observations of CH(4) abundance and its rate of increase, combined with an estimate of the CH(4) lifetime, constrain total global CH(4) emissions to between 500 and 600 Tg CH(4) yr(-1). While total global emissions are constrained reasonably well, estimates of emissions by source sector vary by up to a factor of 2. Current observation networks are suitable to constrain emissions at large scales (e.g. global) but not at the regional to national scales necessary to verify emission reductions under emissions trading schemes. Improved constraints on the global CH(4) budget and its break down of emissions by source sector and country will come from an enhanced observation network for CH(4) abundance and its isotopic composition (δ(13)C, δD(D=(2)H) and δ(14)C). Isotopic measurements are a valuable tool in distinguishing among various sources that contribute emissions to an air parcel, once fractionation by loss processes is accounted for. Isotopic measurements are especially useful at regional scales where signals are larger. Reducing emissions from many anthropogenic source sectors is cost-effective, but these gains may be cancelled, in part, by increasing emissions related to economic development in many parts of the world. An observation network that can quantitatively assess these changing emissions, both positive and negative, is required, especially in the context of emissions trading schemes.