Using global isotopic data to constrain the role of shale gas production in recent increases in atmospheric methane.

Scientific Reports
Alexei V MilkovGiuseppe Etiope

Abstract

The accelerated increase in global methane (CH4) in the atmosphere, accompanied by a decrease in its 13C/12C isotopic ratio (δ13CCH4) from -47.1‰ to -47.3‰ observed since 2008, has been attributed to increased emissions from wetlands and cattle, as well as from shale gas and shale oil developments. To date both explanations have relied on poorly constrained δ13CCH4 source signatures. We use a dataset of δ13CCH4 from >1600 produced shale gas samples from regions that account for >97% of global shale gas production to constrain the contribution of shale gas emissions to observed atmospheric increases in the global methane burden. We find that US shale gas extracted since 2008 has volume-weighted-average δ13CCH4 of -39.6‰. The average δ13CCH4 weighted by US basin-level measured emissions in 2015 was -41.8‰. Therefore, emission increases from shale gas would contribute to an opposite atmospheric δ13CCH4 signal in the observed decrease since 2008 (while noting that the global isotopic trend is the net of all dynamic source and sink processes). This observation strongly suggests that changing emissions of other (isotopically-lighter) CH4 source terms is dominating the increase in global CH4 emissions. Although production of shale gas...Continue Reading

References

Sep 14, 2016·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Andrew L RiceReinhold A Rasmussen
Apr 19, 2017·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Matthew RigbySunyoung Park
Oct 19, 2017·Environmental Science & Technology·Matthew R JohnsonDaniel Zavala-Araiza
Jun 23, 2018·Science·Ramón A AlvarezSteven P Hamburg
Aug 8, 2018·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Xiangyin Ni, Peter M Groffman

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Citations

Sep 12, 2020·Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association·Jacob T ShawRobert S Ward
Jun 3, 2021·Scientific Reports·Stefan LadageSandro Schmidt
Jul 6, 2021·Global Biogeochemical Cycles·X LanM Crippa
Sep 28, 2021·Philosophical Transactions. Series A, Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences·Xin LanSylvia E Michel
Sep 28, 2021·Philosophical Transactions. Series A, Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences·Euan G NisbetNicola J Warwick

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