Assessing Methane Emissions from Global Space-Borne Observations

作者：Christian Frankenberg, Jan Fokke Meirink, Michiel van Weele, U. Platt, Thomas Wagner · 发表于：Science · 年份：2005 · DOI：10.1126/science.1106644 · 被引用次数：514 · 研究领域：Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics、Atmospheric Ozone and Climate、Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols

In the past two centuries, atmospheric methane has more than doubled and now constitutes 20% of the anthropogenic climate forcing by greenhouse gases. Yet its sources are not well quantified, introducing uncertainties in its global budget. We retrieved the global methane distribution by using spaceborne near-infrared absorption spectroscopy. In addition to the expected latitudinal gradient, we detected large-scale patterns of anthropogenic and natural methane emissions. Furthermore, we observed unexpectedly high methane concentrations over tropical rainforests, revealing that emission inventories considerably underestimated methane sources in these regions during the time period of investigation (August through November 2003).