{"id":119089,"date":"2026-09-11T21:49:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T19:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/publikasjoner\/wetland-emission-and-atmospheric-sink-changes-explain-methane-growth-in-2020\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T21:49:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T19:49:57","slug":"wetland-emission-and-atmospheric-sink-changes-explain-methane-growth-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"nva_publication","link":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/publications\/wetland-emission-and-atmospheric-sink-changes-explain-methane-growth-in-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Wetland emission and atmospheric sink changes explain methane growth in 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Atmospheric methane growth reached an exceptionally high rate of 15.1\u2009\u00b1\u20090.4 parts per billion per year in 2020 despite a probable decrease in anthropogenic methane emissions during COVID-19 lockdowns. Here we quantify changes in methane sources and in its atmospheric sink in 2020 compared with 2019. We find that, globally, total anthropogenic emissions decreased by 1.2\u2009\u00b1\u20090.1 teragrams of methane per year (Tg CH4 yr\u22121), fire emissions decreased by 6.5\u2009\u00b1\u20090.1\u2009Tg\u2009CH4\u2009yr\u22121 and wetland emissions increased by 6.0\u2009\u00b1\u20092.3\u2009Tg\u2009CH4\u2009yr\u22121. Tropospheric OH concentration decreased by 1.6\u2009\u00b1\u20090.2\u2009per\u2009cent relative to 2019, mainly as a result of lower anthropogenic nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions and associated lower free tropospheric ozone during pandemic lockdowns. From atmospheric inversions, we also infer that global net emissions increased by 6.9\u2009\u00b1\u20092.1\u2009Tg\u2009CH4\u2009yr\u22121 in 2020 relative to 2019, and global methane removal from reaction with OH decreased by 7.5\u2009\u00b1\u20090.8\u2009Tg\u2009CH4\u2009yr\u22121. Therefore, we attribute the methane growth rate anomaly in 2020 relative to 2019 to lower OH sink (53\u2009\u00b1\u200910\u2009per\u2009cent) and higher natural emissions (47\u2009\u00b1\u200916\u2009per\u2009cent), mostly from wetlands. In line with previous findings, our results imply that wetland methane emissions are sensitive to a warmer and wetter climate and could act as a positive feedback mechanism in the future. Our study also suggests that nitrogen oxide emission trends need to be taken into account when implementing the global anthropogenic methane emissions reduction pledge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","_id":"","_status":"PUBLISHED","_sync_date":"2026-09-11 14:49:04","footnotes":""},"nva_tax_category":[1099],"class_list":["post-119089","nva_publication","type-nva_publication","status-publish","hentry","nva_tax_category-scientific-journal-publication"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nva_publication\/119089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nva_publication"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/nva_publication"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nva_publication\/119089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"nva_tax_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilu.gnist.dev\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nva_tax_category?post=119089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}