Why methane surged in the atmosphere during the early 2020s

Ciais, P.; Zhu, Yu; Cai, Y.; Lan, Xin; Michel, S. E.; Zheng, B.; Zhao, Y.; Hauglustaine, D. A.; Lin, X.; Zhang, Y.; Sun, S.; Tian, X.; Zhao, M.; Wang, Y.; Chang, J.; Dou, X.; Liu, Z.; Andrew, R.; Quinn, C. A.; Poulter, B.; Ouyang, Z.; Yuan, W.; Yuan, Kunxiaojia; Zhu, Q.; Li, F.; Pan, N.; Tian, H.; Yu, X.; Rocher‐Ros, Gerard; Johnson, M. S.; Li, M.; Li, M.; Feng, Dongmei; Raymond, P.; Yang, X.; Canadell, J. G.; Jackson, R. B.; Yu, Xueying; Li, Y.; Saunois, M.; Bousquet, P.; Peng, S.

doi:10.1126/science.adx8262

articleScienceFeb 5, 2026Closed access

Why methane surged in the atmosphere during the early 2020s

PCP. Ciais YZYu Zhu YCY. Cai XLXin Lan SES. E. Michel

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique · Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines · +37 more institutions

PubMed

Indexed incrossrefpubmed

Abstract

The atmospheric methane (CH 4 ) growth rate surged after 2019, peaking at 16.2 parts per billion per year (ppb year −1 ) in 2020 before declining to 8.6 ppb year −1 in 2023. Using multiple atmospheric inversions constrained by observation- and model-based prescribed hydroxyl radical (OH) fields and CH 4 atmospheric data, we show that a drop of OH radicals in 2020–2021, followed by recovery in 2022–2023, accounted for 83% of year-on-year variations in the CH 4 growth rate, the rest being explained by wetland and inland water emissions, which increased between 2019 and 2020–2022 [+8.6 ± 2.6 teragrams of CH 4 per year (TgCH 4 year −1 )] and then decreased between 2022 and 2023 (−9.9 ± 3.3 TgCH 4 year −1 ). Most…

Citation impact

10

total citations

FWCI: 133.66
Percentile: 100%
References: 116

Citations per year

Authors

42

Topics & keywords

Topics

Keywords

Methane
Wetland
Atmospheric methane
Atmosphere (unit)
Arctic
Methane emissions
The arctic

No related works found for this paper.