Regional methane emission from West Siberia mire landscapes

Methane emissions from mires in all climate–vegetation zones of West Siberia (forest steppe, subtaiga, south taiga, middle taiga, north taiga, forest tundra and tundra) were measured using a static chamber method. The observed fluxes varied considerably from small negative values in forested bogs and palsa to hundreds of mgC m−2 h−1 in ponds and wet hollows. Observed data were consolidated in the form of the empirical model of methane emissions designated as the ‘standard model’. The model is based on medians of CH4 flux distributions of eight different micro-landscape types depending on their location and estimated duration of methane emission period within the climate–vegetation zone. The current version (Bc8) of the ‘standard model’ estimates methane flux from West Siberia mires at 2.93 ± 0.97 TgC CH4 yr−1 that accounts for about 2.4% of the total methane emission from all mires or 0.7% of global methane emission from all sources.