The use of δ13 C in CO to determine removal of CH 4 by Cl radicals in the atmosphere 

Thomas Röckmann*, Maarten Van herpen, Chloe Brashear, Carina van der Veen, Sergey Gromov, Qinyi Li, Alfonso Saiz-Lopez, Daphne Meidan, Africa Barreto, Natalia Prats, Ignacio Mármol, Ramón Ramos, Isabel Baños, Jesús m Arrieta, Sönke Zaehnle, Armin Jordan, Heiko Moossen, Helder Timas, Dickon Young, Peter SperlichRowena Moss, Matthew S. Johnson

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

Abstract

The reaction of CH4 with chlorine (Cl) radicals in the atmosphere is associated with an extraordinarily strong isotopic fractionation, where 12CH4 reacts about 70 ‰ faster with Cl than 13CH4. Therefore, although the Cl-based sink of CH4 constitutes only a small contribution to its total removal rate, the uncertainty in this small sink has been identified as one of the two largest uncertainties of isotope-based CH4 source apportionment at the global scale. The uncertainty arises from the fact that Cl levels in the atmosphere are so low that they cannot be detected directly. One very sensitive indirect method to identify and quantify the CH4 + Cl reaction in the atmosphere is the detection of the extremely 13C-depleted reaction product carbon monoxide (CO) from this reaction. This article reviews the concept of this approach, its successful application in the atmosphere, its challenges and opportunities for identifying and quantifying Cl-based removal of CH4 at the regional and global scale and its potential to detect and evaluate possible attempts to enhance CH4 removal from the atmosphere.

Original languageEnglish
Article number064054
Number of pages9
JournalEnvironmental Research Letters
Volume19
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd

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