Modelling the Global Uncertainty of Hydrogen Deposition

Using hydrogen as an alternate fuel source could lead to lower carbon emissions if sourced from renewable energies. However, it can act as an indirect greenhouse gas by extending the lifetime of methane and causing stratospheric water vapour to increase. The global production and loss of hydrogen in the atmosphere are important in order to quantify its lifetime and, by extension, its global warming potential. The main sinks for hydrogen are loss through chemical reactions with OH and biological soil uptake, the latter of which accounts for approximately 80% loss and, on average, has an error range of +/-40%. Due to the wide potential range of deposition velocities and its large global impact on hydrogen, this introduces a major uncertainty to the overall hydrogen budget.

Previously in the UK Chemistry and Aerosol model (UKCA), the soil uptake of hydrogen was fixed temporally and depended on land type, following the scheme by Sanderson et al. (2003). We have implemented the deposition scheme from Paulot et al. (2021) into UKCA in order to better represent the uptake of hydrogen. A wide range of soil parameters are used in the updated scheme: soil moisture, temperature, snow depth, soil carbon content, soil type, and soil saturation content, which allow for a more diverse and dynamic range of deposition velocities. These results from UKCA are evaluated against previous global hydrogen budgets and verified against hydrogen observations from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The calculation of hydrogen deposition velocity onto soil is independent of atmospheric hydrogen, and, as a result, can be calculated offline. We use data from CMIP6 simulations as inputs to calculate a range of global hydrogen deposition velocities across multiple future projections using a range of different deposition models. The different uncertainties associated with models (hydrogen deposition and climate models) natural variation, and future scenarios can be isolated. Fluctuations in deposition and variation through time can be analysed to assess the which factors have the greatest contribution to the hydrogen deposition velocity uncertainty.