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Abstract

Methane emissions from natural wetlands constitute the largest methane source at present and depend highly on the climate. In order to investigate the response of methane emissions from natural wetlands to climate variations, a one‐dimensional process‐based climate‐sensitive model to derive methane emissions from natural wetlands is developed. In the model the processes leading to methane emission are simulated within a one‐dimensional soil column and the three different transport mechanisms, diffusion, plant‐mediated transport, and ebullition, are modeled explicitly. The model forcing consists of daily values of soil temperature, water table, and net primary productivity, and at permafrost sites the thaw depth is included. The methane model is tested using observational data obtained at five wetland sites located in North America, Europe, and Central America, representing a large variety of environmental conditions. It can be shown that in most cases seasonal variations in methane emissions can be explained by the combined effect of changes in soil temperature and the position of the water table. Our results also show that a process‐based approach is needed because there is no simple relationship between these controlling factors and methane emissions that applies to a variety of wetland sites. The sensitivity of the model to the choice of key model parameters is tested and further sensitivity tests are performed to demonstrate how methane emissions from wetlands respond to longer‐term climate variations.