Estimating regional scale methane flux and budgets using CARVE aircraft measurements over Alaska
Abstract. Methane (CH4) is the second most important greenhouse gas but its emissions from northern regions is still poorly constrained. In this study, we analyze a subset of in situ CH4 aircraft observations made over Alaska during the growing seasons of 2012–2014 as part of the Carbon in Arctic Reservoir Vulnerability Experiment (CARVE). Surface CH4 fluxes are estimated using an atmospheric particle transport model which quantitatively links surface emissions from Alaska and the western Yukon with observations of enhanced CH4 in the boundary layer. We estimate that between May and September, 2.1 ± 0.5 Tg, 1.7 ± 0.4 Tg and 2.0 ± 0.3 Tg of CH4 were emitted from the region of interest for 2012–2014, respectively. The predominant sources of the CH4 budget were two broadly classed eco-regions within our domain, with CH4 from the tundra region accounting for over half of the overall budget, despite only representing 18 % of the total surface area. Boreal regions, which cover a large part of the study region, accounted for the remainder of the emissions. Simple multiple linear regression analysis revealed that overall, CH4 flux were largely driven by soil temperature and elevation. In regions specifically dominated by wetlands, soil temperature and moisture at 10 cm depth were important explanatory variables while in regions that were not wetlands, soil temperature and moisture at 40 cm depth were more important, reflecting the depth at which methanogenesis occurs. Although similar variables have been found in the past to control CH4 emissions at local scales, this study shows that they can be used to generate a statistical model to estimate the regional scale CH4 budget.