Final Report Understanding and modeling current and future coastal wetland methane dynamics

Summary

This final report details a 4-year project (August 2020 - August 2024) funded by the DOE to understand and model coastal wetland methane dynamics, operating under Award #: DE-SC0021131. The core challenge was the limited mechanistic understanding of how climate stressors (warming, salinity, inundation) interact to regulate methane emissions in terrestrial-aquatic interfaces, which hindered accurate Earth system modeling. The approach involved building experimental infrastructure, including 12 automated flux chambers installed in March 2021 with a soil warming system heating to up to 6°C above ambient, and marsh organs composed of 12 mesocosms testing warming and sea-level rise effects from June 2022 to September 2023. Key findings include higher methane fluxes from freshwater sites and vegetated treatments, and that summer methane fluxes only increased in warmed soils if temperatures rose above 3.5°C, indicating salinity's moderating role. The project generated extensive data, improved the PFLOTRANTAI model, and supported 3 postdocs, 17 technicians, and 15 participatory scientists.

Key Facts

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