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Spatiotemporal variation in near-surface CH4 concentrations in China over the last two decades

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Abstract

Methane is one of the main greenhouse trace gases and seriously affects the radiation balance of Earth systems due to its strong heat absorption capacity and long atmospheric retention time. Based on the methane stratification data simulated by the community atmospheric model with chemistry (CAM-chem), near-surface methane concentrations were estimated by utilizing the Gaussian function, and the spatiotemporal variation in the near-surface methane concentration in China from 2001 to 2019 was discussed in this research. The results show that (1) based on the methane stratification concentration data simulated by the atmospheric chemical model, the near-surface CH4 concentration estimated by Gaussian function model is reliable, which provides a new method to estimate the near-surface CH4 concentration over China; (2) from 2001 to 2019, the near-surface methane concentration in China showed an increasing trend with an annual growth rate of 7.20±0.23 ppb·a−1. The annual maximum near-surface methane concentration was measured in winter, and the minimum was measured in summer; (3) the spatial distribution differences are obvious: the methane concentration in the east was higher than that in the west, and the methane concentration in the north was higher than that in the south. Moreover, the distributions of methane in the east and west are consistent with the division of Hu Huanyong population line.

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Availability of data and materials

The datasets supporting the results of this article are included within the article and its additional files.

Funding

This work was supported by the Key Program in the Youth Elite Support Plan in Universities of Anhui Province (No. gxgwfx2019058), Key University Science Research Project of Anhui Province (Nos. KJ2019A0632 and KJ2019A0633), Key Research Projects of Provincial Humanities and Social Sciences in Colleges and Universities (Nos. SK2017A0409 and SK2018A0426), and National Undergraduate Training Program for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Nos. 2019CXXL044).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geographic Information and Tourism, Chuzhou University, Chuzhou, 293000, China

    Jianhui Xu, Kai Wang, Qiulong Wang, Li Wang, Yuchan Liu & Maoyu Li

  2. Earth Observation Research, Finnish Meteorological Institute, Helsinki, Finland

    Jianhui Xu

  3. College of Tourism, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081, China

    Qingfang Liu

Authors
  1. Jianhui Xu
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  5. Li Wang
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  7. Maoyu Li
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Contributions

Jianhui Xu and Kai Wang contributed to the conception of the study.

Jianhui Xu, Qiulong Wang, Yuchan Liu, and Maoyu Li performed the experiment.

Jianhui Xu, Qingfang Liu, Li Wang, and Qiulong Wang contributed significantly to analysis and manuscript preparation.

Jianhui Xu and Qingfang Liu performed the data analyses and wrote the manuscript.

Jianhui Xu, Kai Wang, Qiulong Wang, and Li Wang helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions.

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Correspondence to Jianhui Xu.

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Xu, J., Liu, Q., Wang, K. et al. Spatiotemporal variation in near-surface CH4 concentrations in China over the last two decades. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 47239–47250 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14007-0

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