The Significance of Grasslands in Absorption of Atmospheric Methane and Emission of Nitrous oxide

Abstract

Presented here are measurements of methane (CH₄) uptake by, and nitrous oxide (N₂O) emissions from established grassland and neighboring forest-floor soils in Japan. Grassland and forest sods act as a sink of atmospheric CH₄ under aerobic conditions. From ours and other data, we estimated that the uptake of CH₄ by 14 ecosystem types throughout the world vary between 7 and 78 TgCH₄ per year. The sink strength of grasslands would represent a maximum of about 8.5% for the total CH₄ consumption by soil and other land uses.