Investigation of the sources and sinks of atmospheric methane

The work presented here represents a number of independent studies that investigated various components of the CH4 budget, namely the sources and sinks. We used a chemical-tracer model and created unique long-term time series of atmospheric CH4, carbon monoxide (CO), molecular hydrogen (H2), and methylchloroform (CH3CCl3) measurements at marine background air to derive histories of atmospheric hydroxyl radical (OH) - the main chemical oxidant of CH4, biomass burning - an important source of CH4 in the tropics, and emissions of CH4 from rice paddies - one of the largest anthropogenic sources of CH4, over decadal scales. Globally gridded inventories of CH4 emissions from rice paddies and terrestrial vegetation were created by synthesizing greenhouse and field CH4 fluxes, satellite-derived biophysical data, and terrestrial geospatial information