Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have resulted in a rise in the Earth's average temperature in the last decades. Methane (CH4), the second most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (CO2), is considered to be 2.6 times higher than pre-industrial levels (Jackson et al., 2024). CH4 is 28 times more efficient at trapping heat than CO2 over a 100-year period and 80 times more powerful over 20 years, even though it is present in smaller quantities in the atmosphere and has a shorter lifespan than CO2. A special interest lies in the monitoring of urban areas, because of their substantial role in global human-made emissions. Methane emissions include agriculture, particularly from livestock and rice paddies, which constitute the largest source, while fossil fuel activities contribute in the global methane budget as well. The rise in emissions from these sectors is mainly driven by increased activities in developing regions and the intensified extraction and use of fossil fuels, revealing an alarming growth rate of CH4.
In this study, we present the column-averaged dry air mole fractions of methane (XCH4) over Thessaloniki, Greece (Mermigkas et al., 2021), using a portable EM27/SUN ground-based FTIR spectrometer, operating under the umbrella of COllaborative Carbon Column Observing Network (COCCON), covering the period from 2019 to 2023. To analyze methane's long-term variability and trends, we incorporate reanalysis data from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and more specifically from the EAC4 (ECMWF Atmospheric Composition Reanalysis 4) (Inness et al., 2019). This combined dataset allows us to examine the increasing methane concentrations over time, highlighting significant regional enhancements observed in Greece and Italy from 2019 to 2023.
To separate excess signals from background variations, filters with a characteristic duration are used depending on whether long-range or short-range enhancements are of interest. Short-range variations of greenhouse gases can potentially capture signatures of anthropogenic emission enhancements. To that end, we subtract the corresponding 3-hourly averaged XCH4 value for the same season, as the 3-hourly data point. This process is repeated for each year (2019-2023) separately to remove long-term trends. This approach allows for a more accurate assessment of CH4 concentration anomalies, ensuring that seasonal patterns are appropriately considered in the analysis.
Acknowledgement
"This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 101182007".
References
Inness, A., Ades, M., Agustí-Panareda, A., Barré, J., Benedictow, A., Blechschmidt, A.-M., Dominguez, J. J., Engelen, R., Eskes, H., Flemming, J., Huijnen, V., Jones, L., Kipling, Z., Massart, S., Parrington, M., Peuch, V.-H., Razinger, M., Remy, S., Schulz, M., and Suttie, M.: The CAMS reanalysis of atmospheric composition, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 3515–3556, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-3515-2019, 2019
Mermigkas, M.; Topaloglou, C.; Balis, D.; Koukouli, M.E.; Hase, F.; Dubravica, D.; Borsdorff, T.; Lorente, A. FTIR Measurements of Greenhouse Gases over Thessaloniki, Greece in the Framework of COCCON and Comparison with S5P/TROPOMI Observations. Remote Sens. 2021, 13, 3395 https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13173395
R B Jackson et al 2024 Environ. Res. Lett. 19 101002 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ad6463/pdf