Unexpected Changes to the Global Methane Budget over the Past 2000 Years
Abstract
We report a 2000-year Antarctic ice-core record of stable carbon isotope measurements in atmospheric methane (δ13CH4). Large δ13CH4 variations indicate that the methane budget varied unexpectedly during the late preindustrial Holocene (circa 0 to 1700 A.D.). During the first thousand years (0 to 1000 A.D.), δ13CH4 was at least 2 per mil enriched compared to expected values, and during the following 700 years, an about 2 per mil depletion occurred. Our modeled methane source partitioning implies that biomass burning emissions were high from 0 to 1000 A.D. but reduced by almost ∼40% over the next 700 years. We suggest that both human activities and natural climate change influenced preindustrial biomass burning emissions and that these emissions have been previously understated in late preindustrial Holocene methane budget research.
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We thank the staff of the Australian Antarctic Program, especially Casey Station, for field support; A. Smith for firn-air sampling assistance; the Bureau of Meteorology (Australia) for Cape Grim archive-air collection assistance; R. Francey, P. Steele, C. Allison, and S. Coram at CSIRO for logistical and technical help; and especially B. Ruddiman and B. Allan for valuable discussions. Supported by NSF (grant no. OPP0087357); NOAA/Climate Modeling and Diagnostics Laboratory; NIWA, New Zealand (Foundation for Research Science and Technology grant no. C01X0204); and the Australian Government's Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre and CSIRO Atmospheric Research.
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Published In
Science
Volume 309 | Issue 5741
9 September 2005
9 September 2005
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American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Submission history
Received: 23 May 2005
Accepted: 28 July 2005
Published in print: 9 September 2005
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