Enhanced methane emissions from tropical wetlands during the 2011 La Niña

Year-to-year variations in the atmospheric methane (CH(4)) growth rate show significant correlation with climatic drivers. The second half of 2010 and the first half of 2011 experienced the strongest La Niña since the early 1980s, when global surface networks started monitoring atmospheric CH(4) mole fractions. We use these surface measurements, retrievals of column-averaged CH(4) mole fractions from GOSAT, new wetland inundation estimates, and atmospheric δ(13)C-CH(4) measurements to estimate the impact of this strong La Niña on the global atmospheric CH(4) budget. By performing atmospheric inversions, we find evidence of an increase in tropical CH(4) emissions of ∼6–9 TgCH(4) yr(−1) during this event. Stable isotope data suggest that biogenic sources are the cause of this emission increase. We find a simultaneous expansion of wetland area, driven by the excess precipitation over the Tropical continents during the La Niña. Two process-based wetland models predict increases in wetland area consistent with observationally-constrained values, but substantially smaller per-area CH(4) emissions, highlighting the need for improvements in such models. Overall, tropical wetland emissions during the strong La Niña were at least by 5% larger than the long-term mean.