Global methane budget and trend, 2010–2017: complementarity of inverse analyses using in situ (GLOBALVIEWplus CH<sub>4</sub> ObsPack) and satellite (GOSAT) observations

Abstract

Abstract. We use satellite (GOSAT) and in situ (GLOBALVIEWplus CH4 ObsPack) observations of atmospheric methane in a joint global inversion of methane sources, sinks, and trends for the 2010–2017 period. The inversion is done by analytical solution to the Bayesian optimization problem, yielding closed-form estimates of information content to assess the consistency and complementarity (or redundancy) of the satellite and in situ data sets. We find that GOSAT and in situ observations are to a large extent complementary, with GOSAT providing a stronger overall constraint on the global methane distributions, but in situ observations being more important for northern midlatitudes and for relaxing global error correlations between methane emissions and the main methane sink (oxidation by OH radicals). The in-situ-only and the GOSAT-only inversions alone achieve 113 and 212 respective independent pieces of information (DOFS) for quantifying mean 2010–2017 anthropogenic emissions on 1009 global model grid elements, and respective DOFS of 67 and 122 for 2010–2017 emission trends. The joint GOSAT+ in situ inversion achieves DOFS of 262 and 161 for mean emissions and trends, respectively. Thus, the in situ data increase the global information content from the GOSAT-only inversion by 20 %–30 %. The in-situ-only and GOSAT-only inversions show consistent corrections to regional methane emissions but are less consistent in optimizing the global methane budget. The joint inversion finds that oil and gas emissions in the US and Canada are underestimated relative to the values reported by these countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and used here as prior estimates, whereas coal emissions in China are overestimated. Wetland emissions in North America are much lower than in the mean WetCHARTs inventory used as a prior estimate. Oil and gas emissions in the US increase over the 2010–2017 period but decrease in Canada and Europe. The joint inversion yields a global methane emission of 551 Tg a−1 averaged over 2010–2017 and a methane lifetime of 11.2 years against oxidation by tropospheric OH (86 % of the methane sink).

Global distribution of methane emissions: a comparative inverse analysis of observations from the TROPOMI and GOSAT satellite instruments

“…In the CONUS, the large upward adjustment in the southcentral region reflects the well-known underestimate of oilgas emissions by the US EPA inventory in that region (Kort et al, 2014;Smith et al, 2017;Peischl et al, 2018;Alvarez et al, 2018;Gorchov Negron et al, 2020;Lyon et al, 2021). The posterior estimates from both TROPOMI and GOSAT adjust national methane emissions slightly downwards from 30 to 26 Tg a −1 (TROPOMI) and 29 Tg a −1 (GOSAT) over the CONUS, close to the posterior estimates of 31 Tg a −1 from the 0.5 • × 0.625 • inversion over 2010-2015 .…”

Satellite Constraints on the Latitudinal Distribution and Temperature Sensitivity of Wetland Methane Emissions

“…Atmospheric inversions use observations of atmospheric column CH 4 to provide a constraint on the global scale spatial and temporal variability of wetland CH 4 emissions (Lu et al., 2021; Turner et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2021). Attempts have been made to evaluate the performance of bottom‐up models with CH 4 flux estimates from atmospheric inversions (Hayman et al., 2014; Spahni et al., 2011).…”

Methane emissions in the United States, Canada, and Mexico: Evaluation of national methane emission inventories and sectoral trends by inverse analysis of in situ (GLOBALVIEWplus CH<sub>4</sub> ObsPack) and satellite (GOSAT) atmospheric observations

“…Satellite observations have better data coverage but are less sensitive to emissions and have larger uncertainties, particularly at high latitudes. In a previous inverse analysis (Lu et al, 2021), we showed that in situ and satellite observations provide complementary global information for inverse analyses of methane emissions. That inversion was conducted at 4°×5° resolution, 105 too coarse for specific evaluation of national inventories.…”

“…Individual countries must report their anthropogenic methane emissions by sector to the United Nations in accordance with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 1992). These national The above top-down studies except for Baray et al (2020) and Lu et al (2021) used either in situ or satellite observations but not both. Satellite observations have better data coverage but are less sensitive to emissions and have larger uncertainties, particularly at high latitudes.…”