Reacción a "Reactions to methane growth in the atmosphere in 2020 despite pandemic containment"

Methane is a greenhouse gas that contributes about one-fifth of the observed global warming. Although its concentration is much lower than that of CO₂ in the atmosphere, its higher warming potential makes its contribution to global warming significant.  

Analysis of the peak in the rate of growth of its concentration, as well as its sources and sinks from both natural sources and human activities, in the year 2020 - despite the covid-19-related halt in industrial activities and the consequent decrease in the use of fossil fuels - has determined that methane emissions are very sensitive not only to human activities but also to climatic characteristics. For example, a warmer and wetter year favours methane emissions from wetlands.  

Climate models used to estimate the evolution of climate, including the warming associated with our greenhouse gas emissions, include approximations and assumptions about our future greenhouse gas emissions. The result of this work shows us the need to better understand methane emissions from wetlands and their relationship to climate conditions.  

Possibly in the near future it will be considered to increase the complexity of climate models with an additional coupling between methane emissions and climate conditions. Moreover, this dependence of methane emissions on climatic characteristics (higher temperature and rainfall, higher emissions from wetlands) may be the origin of a positive feedback mechanism in the climate system that has not been considered so far and may lead to an increase in our estimates of future global warming.