New tools developed by University of Alberta researchers will better track methane emissions from northern permafrost ecosystems, ultimately allowing for more accurate global predictions of future greenhouse gas emissions.
An extensive new emission dataset and map of northern wetlands and lakes will greatly improve estimates of current and future methane emissions, said McKenzie Kuhn, who contributed to the research to earn her PhD from the U of A's Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences.
"One of the things that has limited us in the past from making accurate estimates is not having adequate maps of northern wetlands and lakes at a large circumpolar scale, as well as corresponding emission measurements for those ecosystems. It's exciting that we are starting to have the tools we need."
Methane is released naturally from the warming sediment and soil in northern lakes and wetlands, and being able to closely measure those emissions adds another layer of accuracy to calculating global greenhouse gas emissions, Kuhn noted.
"Knowing current and future greenhouse gas emissions from natural ecosystems helps us predict future temperatures of the atmosphere, which will help policy makers decide how much we need to reduce human sources of methane emissions to keep atmospheric temperatures livable.
"We can't stop the lakes and wetlands from emitting methane, but as humans, we can control how much methane we produce through fossil fuel use."
The tools and findings, developed through a trio of recent studies, can help improve future greenhouse gas emission research that will be vital to climate policy discussions, such as the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Kuhn added.
"When talking about emission reduction goals, those goals need to incorporate the knowledge from studies like these. If we don't include natural methane emissions from the North, we won't meet those overall goals."
Mapping wetlands and lakes on a global scale
One of the climate research tools, a comprehensive dataset of geographic information, maps the distribution of different wetland and lake types at a large scale never before done for the Arctic boreal region, taking in Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Greenland, Iceland, Canada and Alaska.
The Boreal–Arctic Wetland and Lake Dataset (BAWLD) improves on previous maps, which included only one or two types of wetlands and lakes.
Previous maps at this scale didn't take into account the wide variety of both low- and high-emitting wetlands and lakes or the magnitude of their emissions, Kuhn said.
"This now allows us to more accurately estimate methane emissions."
Kuhn, professor David Olefeldt and a team of other researchers also created a BAWLD database of methane emissions recorded in all published studies about the northern boreal and Arctic regions — a compilation of almost 2,000 sites and 200 scientific papers.
The dataset was built to match the wetland and lake types in the BAWLD map and will help other climate researchers interested in methane emissions from the region, providing context for new methane emissions measured in the field. It can also be used to help build and improve new emission models.
