A multi-year estimate of methane fluxes in Alaska from CARVE atmospheric observations.

ABSTRACT: Methane (CH₄) fluxes from Alaska and other arctic regions may be sensitive to thawing permafrost and future climate change, but estimates of both current and future fluxes from the region are uncertain. This study estimates CH₄ fluxes across Alaska for 2012-2014 using aircraft observations from the Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE) and a geostatistical inverse model (GIM). We find that a simple flux model based on a daily soil temperature map and a static map of wetland extent reproduces the atmospheric CH₄ observations at the state-wide, multi-year scale more effectively than global-scale, state-of-the-art process-based models. This result points to a simple and effective way of representing CH₄ flux patterns across Al

SUBMITTER: Miller SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5207046 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature