Modelling the effects of climate change on methane

Authors: Derrick Y F Lai

Publish Date: 2008/10/28

Volume: 58, Issue: 6, Pages: 1197-1206

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Abstract

Peatlands are a large potential source of methane CH4 to the atmosphere In order to investigate the effects of climate change on CH4 emission from northern ombrotrophic peatlands a simulation model coupling water table dynamics with methane emission was developed for the Mer Bleue Bog in Ontario Canada The model was validated against reported values of CH4 flux from field measurements and the model outputs exhibited high sensitivity to acrotelm thickness leaf area index transmissivity and slope of water table With a 2–4°C temperature rise over the 4year simulation period the rate of CH4 release dropped significantly to under 01 mg m−2 day−1 On the other hand mean CH4 emission increased by 26fold when the increase in precipitation was 15 When looking at the combined effects the highest CH4 release 133 mg m−2 day−1 was attained under the scenario of 2°C temperature rise and 25 precipitation increase Results obtained in this study highlight the importance of avoiding more extreme climate change which would otherwise lead to enhanced methane release from peatlands and further atmospheric warming through positive feedbackThe author thanks Garry Peterson David Olefeldt Young Il Kim and Jianghua Wu for fruitful discussions on model development and Peter Lafleur and Elyn Humphreys for kindly providing water table data Infrastructural facilities at Mer Bleue are supported by the Fluxnet Canada Research Network Suggestions from three anonymous reviewers help improve this manuscript

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