Summary/Abstract
Rising atmospheric methane concentrations and increasing global methane emissions remain poorly understood, and pose a challenge for efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change. In this peer-reviewed study, published in Nature Climate Change, the authors propose that rapidly increasing rice emissions in sub-Saharan Africa could be a substantial but previously unrecognized contributor to the global methane trend. The authors argue that current methane emission inventories underestimate emissions from African rice and its trend because they do not adequately account for recent increases in both cultivated area and in methane emissions per unit of cultivated area. Assessing cultivation methods and environmental conditions (both of which can effect methane emissions from rice production), the authors’ results imply that African rice emissions have contributed 31% of the recent trend in African emissions and 7% of the trend in global methane emissions.
The authors conclude by noting that this cultivation is a response to the need to feed the rapidly growing population in sub-Saharan Africa, and that these revised methane estimates might require even greater reduction of methane emissions from other sectors.