METHANE SOURCES IN CHINA - HISTORICAL AND CURRENT EMISSIONS

China is one of the world's largest producers of rice and constitutes a sizable fraction of the Earth's population. As such emissions from China are of interest in understanding the global methane budget. Using geographical, agricultural and industrial data along with direct flux measurements, we have estimated the emissions of methane from China during the last century, concentrating mostly over the last 50 years. We find that: 1) the anthropogenic methane emissions from China are now more than 60 Tg/yr. 2) In recent decades there has been a decline in the emissions from agricultural sources due mostly to a dramatic decrease in the per capita emissions of methane from rice agriculture. 3) Sources related to energy (coal and natural gas consumption) are on the rise so that the reductions from agriculture are offset by increases from these energy sources. If the present trends continue, the dominating role of rice agriculture on methane emissions from China will be replaced by emissions from energy sources. This and many other aspects of the China historical methane budget parallel the global emissions of methane.