Estimating wetland CH emissions on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau based on a processed model coupled with inundation dynamics between 1960 and 2100.

Quantifying the impacts of climate change and wetland area dynamics on methane (CH) emissions in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) is crucial for enhancing our understanding of regional and global CH budgets. However, a major source of uncertainty in estimating wetland methane emissions stems from the limited delineation of wetland area dynamics. In this study, we integrated dynamic wetland inundation schemes into a process-based model to quantify the contributions of wetland area variations to natural wetland CH emissions on the QTP, both historically and in the future. The results revealed that climate change significantly influenced the spatiotemporal distribution of wetland CH emissions, with wetland inundation dynamics contributing between 21.84 % and 27.18 % of the increase in CH emissions from 1960 to 2020. Under future climate change scenarios, wetland CH emissions are projected to exhibit a more pronounced increasing trend, with wetland inundation dynamics projected to contribute 18.94 % to 21.80 % of the increase in CH emissions in the QTP under seven Shared Socioeconomic Pathways scenarios.