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Climate feedback from wetland methane emissions
Author(s) -
Gedney N.,
Cox P. M.,
Huntingford C.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2004gl020919
Subject(s) - wetland , environmental science , radiative forcing , climate change , methane , forcing (mathematics) , methane emissions , atmospheric sciences , global change , greenhouse gas , global warming , climatology , ecology , oceanography , geology , biology
The potential for wetland emissions to feedback on climate change has been previously hypothesised [ Houghton et al. , 2001]. We assess this hypothesis using an interactive wetlands scheme radiatively coupled to an integrated climate change effects model. The scheme predicts wetland area and methane (CH 4 ) emissions from soil temperature and water table depth, and is constrained by optimising its ability to reproduce the observed inter‐annual variability in atmospheric CH 4 . In transient climate change simulations the wetland response amplifies the total anthropogenic radiative forcing at 2100 by about 3.5–5%. The modelled increase in global CH 4 flux from wetland is comparable to the projected increase in anthropogenic CH 4 emissions over the 21st century under the IS92a scenario.