The Global Carbon Atlas

While CO? in the atmosphere has increased steadily, methane concentrations grew relatively slowly throughout the 2000s, but since 2007 have grown ten times faster. Methane increased faster still in 2014 and 2015.

Remarkably, this growth is occurring on top of methane concentrations that are already 150% higher than at the start of the Industrial Revolution (now around 1,834 parts per billion).

The global methane budget is important for other reasons too: it is less well understood than the CO? budget and is influenced to a much greater extent by a wide variety of human activities. About 60% of all methane emissions come from human actions. These include living sources – such as livestock, rice paddies and landfills – and fossil fuel sources, such as emissions during the extraction and use of coal, oil and natural gas.

We know less about natural sources of methane, such as those from wetlands, permafrost, termites and geological seeps. Biomass and biofuel burning originates from both human and natural fires.

See the Global Carbon Atlas at http://www.globalcarbonatlas.org.