Seminar: Luana Basso

Wetlands and lakes are a major natural source of methane to the atmosphere in the Arctic-Boreal regions. Disturbance processes associated with permafrost thawing, driven by accelerated temperature increases, have the potential to increase methane emissions. This, in turn, may contribute to a positive feedback that exacerbates climate change. To address this uncertainty and to better understand the role of this region in the global methane budget, we estimated global methane fluxes using the Jena CarboScope Global Inversion System, with a particular focus on the Arctic-Boreal region. As data availability in this target region has increased significantly over the last decade, our estimates focus on the period 2010 to 2021. We used the wetland flux from the JSBACH model as a prior flux and assimilated globally available atmospheric observations, with a particular focus on towers within the region between 60°N and 90°N latitude, to better constrain the Arctic-Boreal estimates. We looked at regional and interannual variability and examined seasonal patterns. We also compare our estimates with top-down and bottom-up CH4 estimates available for the same period.