Assessing Methane Emissions from Global Space-Borne Observations
Abstract
In the past two centuries, atmospheric methane has more than doubled and now constitutes 20% of the anthropogenic climate forcing by greenhouse gases. Yet its sources are not well quantified, introducing uncertainties in its global budget. We retrieved the global methane distribution by using spaceborne near-infrared absorption spectroscopy. In addition to the expected latitudinal gradient, we detected large-scale patterns of anthropogenic and natural methane emissions. Furthermore, we observed unexpectedly high methane concentrations over tropical rainforests, revealing that emission inventories considerably underestimated methane sources in these regions during the time period of investigation (August through November 2003).
Additional Information
© 2005 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received for publication 22 October 2004; accepted for publication 9 March 2005. Most importantly the authors thank all scientists and engineers involved in the ESA's ENVISAT/SCIAMACHY mission, especially J. P. Burrows and H. Bovensmann from the University of Bremen, as well as the space agencies of Germany [German Aerospace Center (DLR)], Netherlands [Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programmes (NIVR)], and Belgium [Belgian User Support and Operations Center (BUSOC)]. We also thank R. Washenfelder and G. Toon from Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the updated methane spectral database; S. Sanghavi for proofreading the manuscript; and the Netherlands SCIAMACHY Data Center, in particular A. J. M. Piters and J. van de Vegte from [Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institut (RNMI)], for invaluable assistance in handling the SCIAMACHY data format. We acknowledge the European Commission for supporting the 5th Framework Programme RTD project EVERGREEN (contract number EVG1-CT-2002-00079) and A. P. H. Goede, EVERGREEN project coordinator.Attached Files
Supplemental Material - Frankenberg.SOM.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 57394
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20150508-162503573
- EVG1-CT-2002-00079
- European Commission
- Created
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2015-05-11Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences