CH4 responsible for more than 80% of recent atmospheric methane growth

Tropical terrestrial methane, or CH4, emissions are responsible for more than 80% of observed changes in the global atmospheric methane growth rate from 2010 to 2019, according to a study released Wednesday. Photo by Sun Gehui/Chinese Academy of Sciences Headquarters

March 16 (UPI) -- Tropical terrestrial methane emissions were the driving factor of changes in methane growth over the past decade, according to a study released Wednesday.

More than 80% of observed changes in the global atmospheric methane growth rate from 2010 to 2019 were the result of tropical terrestrial methane emissions, or CH4, according to the study published in Nature Communications.

One of the study's authors, Yi Liu, professor at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said CH4 was the primary non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gas.

"On the 20-year scale, the warming effect of CH4 is 84 times that of CO2," Yi said in a statement.

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The study found that methane concentration has more than doubled since the pre-industrial era, contributing 20% of current human-induced global warming with CH4 emissions as the main contributor representing about 60% of the global totals.

Researchers also discovered seasonal correlations between sea surface temperature over tropical oceans and regional variations in methane emissions in tropical regions in South America and Africa.

"Sea surface temperature variations could be used to help forecast variations in global atmospheric CH4," said another of the study's authors, Liang Feng of the University of Edinburgh.

A Global Methane Assessment by the U.N. Environment Program and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition study last May found that human-caused methane emissions can be reduced by up to 45% this decade, keeping the global temperature within the bounds of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Last November, U.S. President Joe Biden said that reducing methan emissions is "one of the most important things we can do in this decisive decade" as he pledged the United States will hit its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.