Identification

Title

Climate versus emission drivers of methane lifetime against loss by tropospheric OH from 1860-2100

Abstract

With a more-than-doubling in the atmospheric abundance of the potent greenhouse gas methane (CH₄) since preindustrial times, and indications of renewed growth following a leveling off in recent years, questions arise as to future trends and resulting climate and public health impacts from continued growth without mitigation. Changes in atmospheric methane lifetime are determined by factors which regulate the abundance of OH, the primary methane removal mechanism, including changes in CH₄ itself. We investigate the role of emissions of short-lived species and climate in determining the evolution of methane lifetime against loss by tropospheric OH, (TCH4_OH), in a suite of historical (1860-2005) and future Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) simulations (2006-2100), conducted with the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) fully coupled chemistry-climate model (CM3). From preindustrial to present, CM3 simulates an overall 5% increase in TCH4_OH due to a doubling of the methane burden which offsets coincident increases in nitrogen oxide (NOx emissions. Over the last two decades, however, the TCH4_OH declines steadily, coinciding with the most rapid climate warming and observed slow-down in CH₄ growth rates, reflecting a possible negative feedback through the CH₄ sink. Sensitivity simulations with CM3 suggest that the aerosol indirect effect (aerosol-cloud interactions) plays a significant role in cooling the CM3 climate. The projected decline in aerosols under all RCPs contributes to climate warming over the 21st century, which influences the future evolution of OH concentration and TCH4_OH. Projected changes in TCH4_OH from 2006 to 2100 range from -13% to +4%. The only projected increase occurs in the most extreme warming case (RCP8.5) due to the near-doubling of the CH₄ abundance, reflecting a positive feedback on the climate system. The largest decrease occurs in the RCP4.5 scenario due to changes in short-lived climate forcing agents which reinforce climate warming and enhance OH. This decrease is more-than-halved in a sensitivity simulation in which only well-mixed greenhouse gas radiative forcing changes along the RCP4.5 scenario (5% vs. 13%).

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7w37x4v

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2012-12-19T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact