Scientists concerned by ‘record high’ global methane emissions

Jul 23, 2020

Biogas, methane collected from dairy farms, is piped into a cleaning facility at the Calgren facility in Pixley, California, U.S., October 2, 2019. Picture taken October 2, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake - RC13FDC2E3A0

Global emissions have hit almost 600m tonnes. Image: REUTERS/Mike Blake

Robert McSweeney

Science Editor, Carbon Brief

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Wetlands of Abari Swamps, Mahaica Miconi Abari, Guyana South America.

Image: Credit: Nature Picture Library / Alamy Stock Photo

The global methane budget (in teragrams of methane per year) for the year 2017, based on top-down methods for natural sources and sinks (green), anthropogenic sources (orange), and mixed natural and anthropogenic sources (hatched orange-green for ‘biomass and biofuel burning’). Image: Jackson et al. (2020)

Methane emissions (in teragrams of methane per year) by region, source category, and latitude. The mean estimates shown are based on the ensemble of top-down inversion models described in Saunois et al (2020). Image: Jackson et al. (2020)

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