Optimal estimation of the soil uptake rate of molecular hydrogen from the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment and other measurements

[1] Hydrogen (H-2), a proposed clean energy alternative, warrants detailed investigation of its global budget and future environmental impacts. The magnitudes and seasonal cycles of the major ( presumably microbial) soil sink of hydrogen have been estimated from high-frequency in situ AGAGE H-2 observations and also from more geographically extensive but low-frequency flask measurements from CSIRO and NOAA-GMD using the Kalman filter in a two-dimensional (2-D) global transport model. Hydrogen mole fractions exhibit well-defined seasonal cycles in each hemisphere with their phase difference being only about 3 months. The global production rate of H-2 is estimated to be 103 +/- 10 Tg yr(-1) with only a small estimated interannual variation. Soil uptake ( 84 +/- 8 Tg yr(-1)) represents the major loss process for H-2 and accounts for 81% of the total destruction. Strong seasonal cycles are deduced for the soil uptake of H-2. The soil sink is a maximum over the northern extratropics in summer and peaks only 2 to 3 months earlier in the Northern Hemisphere than in the Southern Hemisphere. Oxidation by tropospheric OH (18 +/- 3 Tg yr(-1)) accounts for 17% of the destruction, with the remainder due to destruction in the stratosphere. The calculated global burden is 191 +/- 29 Tg, indicating an overall atmospheric lifetime of 1.8 +/- 0.3 years. Hydrogen in the troposphere ( 149 +/- 23 Tg burden) has a lifetime of 1.4 +/- 0.2 years.