Big Trouble from Little Wetlands

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By Taylor Mitchell Brown, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: Wetlands are the largest natural source of methane on Earth. Though the waterlogged lands offer benefits that include hosting thriving ecosystems and protecting our shorelines from flooding, researchers are eager to better understand their contribution to the warming climate. In a paper published in Nature Climate Change, researchers report that typical global wetlands surveys overlook an astronomical number of small wetlands: about 160 million of them. These small wetlands, which range in size from a large swimming pool to 100 hectares (250 acres), are responsible for 25% of the present global methane emissions, the research found. ...“Methane emission rates are positively related to the temperature,” said Li. As the global temperature increases, these methane-emitting microbes become more productive. “It’s like a snowball that gets bigger and bigger,” he said. Rising global temperatures likely triggered the increased emissions and will continue to feed the tumbling snowball in the future.... 

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