References

ACP

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

ACP

1680-7324

Copernicus GmbH

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/acp-7-237-2007

Stable isotopes provide revised global limits of aerobic methane emissions from plants

Ferretti

D. F.

¹ ² Miller

J. B.

³ White

J. W. C.

¹ Lassey

K. R.

² Lowe

D. C.

² Etheridge

D. M.

⁴

University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd, Wellington, New Zealand

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, CO, USA

Marine and Atmospheric Research, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Aspendale, Victoria, Australia

17 01 2007

7 1 237 241

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Recently Keppler et al. (2006) discovered a surprising new source of methane – terrestrial plants under aerobic conditions, with an estimated global production of 62–236 Tg yr−1 by an unknown mechanism. This is ~10–40% of the annual total of methane entering the modern atmosphere and ~30–100% of annual methane entering the pre-industrial (0 to 1700 AD) atmosphere. Here we test this reported global production of methane from plants against ice core records of atmospheric methane concentration (CH4) and stable carbon isotope ratios (δ13CH4) over the last 2000 years. Our top-down approach determines that global plant emissions must be much lower than proposed by Keppler et al. (2006) during the last 2000 years and are likely to lie in the range 0–46 Tg yr−1 and 0–176 Tg yr−1 during the pre-industrial and modern eras, respectively.

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