Methane emissions in the US and Canada: contributions of various source sectors and evolution of emissions over time

Scot M Miller1, Anna M Michalak2, Steven C Wofsy3, Arlyn Andrews4, Sebastien Biraud5, Edward J Dlugokencky6, Marc Laurenz Fischer7, Greet Janssens-Maenhout8, Eric A Kort9, Benjamin R Miller10, John B Miller6, Stephen A Montzka6 and Doug E. J. Worthy11, (1)Harvard University, Cambridge, United States, (2)Google Research, Mountain View, United States, (3)Harvard University, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, United States, (4)NOAA Boulder, Boulder, United States, (5)Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, United States, (6)NOAA, Global Monitoring Laboratory, Boulder, United States, (7)Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA, United States, (8)IES/ Joint Research Centre, Ispra (Varese), Italy, (9)University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, Ann Arbor, MI, United States, (10)Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, CO, United States, (11)Environment Canada Toronto, Climate Research Division, Toronto, ON, Canada
Abstract:
In this presentation, we quantify several aspects of methane emissions in the US and Canada using concentration data collected in the atmosphere. First, how much methane in total is emitted from the US and Canada? Second, how much methane is emitted from each individual source across these countries? Third, and finally, how have each of these sources changed in magnitude over the past ten to twenty years? To answer these questions, we use a geostatistical model-data fusion framework and spatial data on land use and economic activity. Using this approach, we estimate the contribution of different source types to methane emissions in the US and compare the magnitude of those anthropogenic emissions against natural fluxes from major wetlands like those near Hudson Bay, Canada. Furthermore, we examine the time-evolution of methane concentrations over regions dominated by agriculture and natural gas extraction and investigate what this data indicates about changes in emissions over time.
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