The MOYA projects PI Euan Nisbet will be convening a session on methane in the AGU Fall Meeting. This years AGU will be held in Washington, D.C. from the 10th-14th of December. Abstract submission closes on the 1st of August 2018 so get writing!
Sampling methane emissions from cows in Zimbabwe
The global burden of atmospheric methane has exhibited periods of both rapid growth and stagnation over the past two decades, with unexplained rapid growth since 2014. This growth has been accompanied by a negative isotopic shift (δ13C–CH4), reversing the trend of the past two centuries. Methane does not have a single dominant source, but rather a wide spectrum of anthropogenic and natural sources. This diversity of uncertain sources has led to a number of recent explanations for recent growth including: tropical wetlands, livestock, fossil fuels (coupled with declining biomass burning), and changes in the methane sink (via reaction with OH). The warming impact of methane’s unexpected growth is now the largest deviation from the Paris Agreement. This session invites work that investigates processes controlling the methane budget using in situ measurements, satellite observations, and modeling, as well as the ways in which emissions can be reduced.