GLOBAL BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLES, VOL. 21, GB4013, doi:10.

1029/2006GB002734, 2007

A global inventory of the soil CH4 sink

Laure Dutaur1 and Louis V. Verchot1
Received 6 April 2006; revised 16 February 2007; accepted 8 March 2007; published 15 November 2007.

[1] Methane uptake by soils is a small but important flux in the global budget of
atmospheric methane, and could be susceptible to changes in land use and climate.
Estimates of this sink vary between 20 and 45 Tg yr 1. We propose to develop a better
constrained estimate using a mechanistic understanding of the biogeochemical controls of
soil CH4 uptake. We reviewed over 120 published papers reporting field measurements
of CH4 uptake and made over 318 annual estimates of CH4 uptake for various types of
ecosystems. We collected data from these papers for a number of parameters that are
known to influence the magnitude of the sink including climatic zone, ecosystem,
latitude, annual mean rainfall, annual mean temperature, and the soil texture. Regression
analyses with the continuous variables (latitude, rainfall, and temperature) yielded results
with poor predictive ability and no significant relationship. Stratification by class
variables such as climatic zone, ecosystem type and soil texture provided better predictive
ability (R2 = 0.29, P < 0.0001). The mean largest uptake rates were observed in temperate
forests with coarse soil texture, but the variance within this stratum was also large.
Without any stratification, we estimate that the global soil CH4 sink is 36 ± 23 Tg yr 1.
With stratification, the best current estimate of the global soil uptake of CH4 is 22 ±
12 Tg yr 1. The ecosystem type accounted for the largest part of the variation in the
global data set. This inventory showed that ecosystem type, geographic zone, and soil
texture strongly control CH4 uptake. Inventory methods that take into account underlying
factors that control the process provide better estimates of sink strength.
Citation: Dutaur, L., and L. V. Verchot (2007), A global inventory of the soil CH4 sink, Global Biogeochem. Cycles, 21, GB4013,
doi:10.1029/2006GB002734.

1. Introduction and therefore, requires molecular O2. Methanogenesis is the

process of microbial production of CH4 in anaerobic con-
[2] Understanding the sources and sinks of atmospheric
ditions. Methanogenesis is an important process in wetland
trace gas constituents is important for understanding anthro-
soils and rice paddies and these systems are usually sources
pogenic impacts on the radiative balance of the atmosphere.
of CH4 for the atmosphere. However, methanogenesis can
Many of the budgets of these gases are poorly constrained,
also occur in upland soils, inside soil aggregates where
which limits our ability to understand the dynamics of these
anaerobic ‘microsites’ occur. Methanotrophy is the domi-
gases. The atmospheric concentration of methane (CH4) has
nant process in upland soils, where oxidation generally
doubled since pre-industrial times. The current concentration
exceeds production and there is a net uptake by the soil
is 1780 ppbv and, until recently, the concentration was
of CH4 from the atmosphere. Methanotrophy is also an
increasing. The rate of increase in the concentration of
important process in wetland soils at the aerobic soil-water
atmospheric CH4 slowed from about 15 ppbv yr 1 in the
interface. One estimate of the importance of soil methano-
1980s to near zero in 1999 [Dlugokencky, 2001]. Since 1990,
trophy suggests that as much as 50% of the CH4 produced
the annual rate of CH4 increase in the atmosphere has varied
in soils and sediments is consumed therein [Reeburgh et al.,
between less than zero and 15 ppbv. The reasons for this
1993].
change are not known.
[4] In the global CH4 budget soils are the largest biotic
[3] Soils both produce and consume CH4. The net soil –
sink for atmospheric CH4, consuming 15– 45 Tg annually, a
atmosphere CH4 flux is the result of the balance between the
rate that is of similar magnitude as the rate of CH4
two offsetting processes of methanogenesis (microbial pro-
accumulation in the atmosphere during the 1990s [Potter
duction) and methanotrophy (microbial consumption).
et al., 1996; Ridgwell et al., 1999]. Thus any significant
Methanotrophs and methyltrophs are all obligate aerobes;
change made to the soil CH4 sink could alter the net
the biochemical process requires a monooxygenase enzyme
biosphere – atmosphere flux and alter the atmospheric accu-
mulation rate of this potent greenhouse gas. Ojima et al.
1
[1993] suggested that there has been a significant increase
International Centre for Research in Agroforestry, Nairobi, Kenya.
in the soil sink as atmospheric mixing ratios of CH4 have
Copyright 2007 by the American Geophysical Union.
increased. At the same time, land use change and expansion
0886-6236/07/2006GB002734 of agriculture has significantly reduced the strength of the

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GB4013 DUTAUR AND VERCHOT: A GLOBAL INVENTORY OF THE SOIL CH4 SINK
soil sink [Potter et al., 1996; Smith et al., 2000]. Ojima et
al. [1993] calculated that the temperate forest and grassland
sink for atmospheric CH4 has been reduced by 1.5 to 6 Tg
CH4 yr 1. The changes in sink strength associated with land
use change are of an order of magnitude such that they are
affecting the atmospheric accumulation rate of this impor-
tant greenhouse gas.
[5] Several general reviews have recently discussed the
role of soils as source and sink for atmospheric CH4
[Conrad, 1989; Nedwell, 1996; Topp and Pattey, 1997; Le
Mer and Roger, 2001]. During the past fifteen years, the
number of published papers reporting on soil CH4 uptake
has grown. This work has shown that variability in the
methane uptake results from the interactions of a number of
factors that regulate methane oxidation in the soil, for
example climate, soil physical properties like water content
and porosity, and biological variables like the nature of the
soil microbial community. Among these factors, soil phys-
ical properties are likely to have the greatest influence on
the soil CH4 sink at the regional to global scales [Potter et
al., 1996; Striegl et al., 1992; Verchot et al., 2000; Del
Grosso et al., 2000; Borken and Beese, 2006]. Low CH4
oxidation rates are consistently associated with fine textured
soils that have low porosity and high water retention, which
combine to restrict diffusion of CH4 into the soil profile.
Coarse texture soils tend to drain rapidly and have high
porosity and therefore high diffusion rates of CH4 into the
soil profile. Several authors [Verchot et al., 2000; Kiese et
al., 2003] noted that in environments with seasonal rainfall
patterns, CH4 uptake closely followed the pattern of rainfall,
increasing rapidly during the dry season as soil water
content declines. Other factors also affect uptake of CH4
by soils. For example, cold winter temperatures inhibit
microbial activity over the large landmasses of the northern
hemisphere. However, Mosier et al. [1997] have shown that
frozen soils continue to consume CH4 at a reduced rate.
[6] The first objective of this paper is to use this new data
to reevaluate the global inventory of CH4 uptake by soils.
Extrapolation estimates of greenhouse gas fluxes are often
done by surveying the literature, averaging means from a
number of studies, and multiplying by the area covered by
the biome or ecosystem [Potter et al., 1996; Mosier et al.,
1998; Smith et al., 2000]. However, there is a tremendous
amount of variation within a biome and we understand
enough about the controlling factors that we ought to be
able to use them reduce the variance of the means within the
extrapolation units. Thus our second objective is to examine
the potential for explaining variability across studies in the
literature using parameters that are often measured and that
have mechanistic significance.
[7] In this study, we looked at a number of factors that are
likely to explain large-scale variability in CH4 uptake by
soils. Latitude is a good proxy for the length of the growing
season or of the frost-free season. Seasonal variations in
precipitation also correspond to variations in temperature
and these two factors work in concert to affect fluxes. Thus
parameters such as mean annual precipitation and mean
temperature can be used as indicators of climate controls on
microbial processes as well as on diffusion across the soil—
atmosphere boundary. Ecosystem type also affects the
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variability in the CH4 uptake. Boeckx and Van Cleemput
[2001] noted that CH4 uptake was higher in forest soils than
in grasslands and arable soils.
[8] We used the relationships developed from this analy-
sis to explore different stratification schemes for estimating
the global soil CH4 sink. We judged the success of this
approach through the reduction in variation within strata
compared to more aggregated stratification schemes.
2. Methods
[9] We compiled a database from 120 studies that reported
CH4 fluxes from different terrestrial biomes (auxiliary
material1). We included data from studies that reported soil
texture, annual rainfall, mean temperature and latitude coor-
dinates. Few studies were designed to estimate annual
uptake of methane by soils. Some reported fluxes during
more than one season, but several reported fluxes only
during a brief period, which was often during the summer
in temperate regions. Whenever the authors provided their
own extrapolation to an annual estimate, we use their
estimate. Where authors provided no annual extrapolations,
we used our best judgment to make an estimate of the annual
total.
[10] The method for extrapolation varied with the climatic
zone, as we took into account seasonal variations. General-
ly, these studies presented data that were complete enough
to calculate the total flux from the site for the frost-free
season. However, Mosier et al. [1997] working in alpine
tundra ecosystems showed that even in frozen soils CH4
fluxes were maintained, albeit at lower rates than during
frost-free seasons. Thus, when studies reported fluxes only
for the frost-free part of the year, we assumed that these
fluxes represented 70% of the annual flux. Therefore,
depending on the latitude, we calculated the CH4 sink for
the measurement period between 100 and 365 days, and for
ecosystems where soils froze, we assumed that this value
represented 70% of the annual flux.
[11] All CH4 uptake fluxes were expressed in terms of kg
CH4 ha 1yr 1. When the annual mean temperature, annual
mean rainfall or latitude data were missing, we used
globally gridded data sets available on the worldwide
web: www.weatherbase.com and www.mappoint.msn.com,
according to the site description provided in the paper.
[12] We stratified the data into different biomes according
to the Leemans’ classification [Leemans, 1990]. Many
papers did not give the type of forest, so we grouped several
of Leemans’ categories together: tundra forest with boreal
forest, cold temperate forests with warm temperate forests,
and tropical seasonal forests with rain forests. We also
grouped cold and hot deserts together because of their
low biological activity and because of the lack of data.
The soil texture data were used to classify soils into in four
texture classes: organic, fine, medium and coarse, according
to the USDA classification system [Brady, 1974].
[13] We made over 310 estimates of annual CH4 uptake
by soils (auxiliary material). This number differs from the
1
Auxiliary materials are available at ftp://ftp.agu.org/apend/gb/
2006gb002734.
GB4013 DUTAUR AND VERCHOT: A GLOBAL INVENTORY OF THE SOIL CH4 SINK
Figure 1. Location of study sites used for this analysis (GIS Unit, ICRAF).
number of published papers because several papers reported
fluxes for more than one type of ecosystem or for more than
one crop. In a few cases, we combined estimates from more
than one published paper for the same study area to estimate
one single annual flux for the site. We analyzed the data to
explore the relationships between CH4 flux and environ-
mental or physical variables through both regression anal-
ysis and analysis of variance using SAS statistical software
[SAS Institute, 2005]. The data set was not normally
distributed and even with a logarithmic transformation,
the data set deviated significantly from a normal distribu-
tion, albeit to a lesser degree than untransformed data. Thus,
to reduce heteroskedasticity and to improve the distribution,
we conducted all statistical analyses with transformed data.
All extrapolations were based upon the arithmetic mean
rather than the geometric mean, as the arithmetic mean is
the center of probability of a distribution and is therefore
parameter of choice for extrapolation [Parkin and Robinson,
1994].
3. Results
3.1. Adequacy of the Data Set
[14] The data set was extensive and covered the major
ecosystems of the world. We note however, that the distri-
bution of the sites was uneven, with high concentration of
sites in eastern North America, Western Europe and north-
ern South America (Figure 1). Large areas of Africa, Asia
and southern South America had no measurements. Addi-
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tionally, measurement density in the taiga, tundra and
deserts was low.
[15] According to classification scheme of Leemans
[1990], which was also used by Potter et al. [1996] for
their global extrapolation, the land area of the globe can be
divided into 14 ecosystem types. We present these ecosys-
tem types in Table 1 along with the number sites for which
we made estimates of annual CH4 uptake and the mean
uptake rates. We note that the sum of the area data in Table 1
is superior to those used in other CH4 sink estimates in this
paper. In later estimates, we removed lithosols from the area
as we expect that the CH4 uptake in these soils is nil.
Additionally the FAO classification lists 30% of the soils as
undefined for tundra, so stratification based upon texture is
impossible. Therefore the tundra area that we used for
our estimate was only 0.05  106 km2 rather than 9.41 
106 km2.
[16] Forests, with 205 sites, represented more than 65% of
the study sites. Over 29% of these sites were from temperate
forests; 19% were from tropical forest; and 16% were from
boreal forests. Among the remaining sites, 42% were culti-
vated. Desert, tundra, tropical steppes, savannas, and chap-
arral were all under represented in the data set. The variance
in the temperate forest was very high, but in the other
ecosystems, they were of similar order of magnitude as the
mean. Temperate forests were very well represented in the
literature and very well distributed around the world, with
measurements at 92 different sites by 40 different authors.
[17] CH4 uptake rates varied between 0.04 and 49.93 kg
(CH4) ha 1yr 1. The highest consumption rates were
GB4013 DUTAUR AND VERCHOT: A GLOBAL INVENTORY OF THE SOIL CH4 SINK GB4013

Table 1. Summary of the Data Set Used for the Analyses in This Paper by Biome
Total Land Area,b Number of Mean,
Ecosystem Typea  106 km2 Study Sites kgCH4 ha 1 yr 1
Variance
Tundra 9.41 11 1.49 5.52
Forest 51 2.64 8.06
Forest tundra 8.18
Boreal forest 15.31
Desert 5 1.10 1.03
Cool desert 2.63
Hot desert 19.29
Grasslands 2.61 29 2.32 2.92
Cultivationc 24.79 47 1.23 1.22
Chaparral 2.17 3 2.25 0.54
Forest 92 5.70 31.50
Cool temperate forest 5.07
Warm temperate forest 1.69
Tropical steppe/savanna 18 1.49 1.54
Tropical semiarid steppe 7.98
Tropical savanna 11.50
Tropical forest 62 3.33 4.82
Tropical seasonal forest 12.83
Tropical rain forest 7.17
Total 130.6 318 3.29 14.80
a
Leemans [1990].
b
Potter et al. [1996].
c
Breakdown of sites: boreal, 3; tropical, 6; temperate, 38.

measured by Singh et al. [1997] in savanna and tropical of outliers. The coefficient of variation for the temperate
forest ecosystems. Excluding these very high rates, the observed zone was 120%, compared to 115% for the boreal zone and
fluxes range 0.04 to 27.74 kg (CH4) ha 1yr 1. There is 77% for the tropical zone.
no obvious explanation for such high average fluxes, as [20] We then stratified the global data set by ecosystem
compared with other CH4 fluxes from same ecosystems type. Analysis of variance indicated that there was a major
(auxiliary material) even if they are representative of par- ecosystem effect, so we stratified the data set into forest and
ticular situations. Thus they were not considered in the nonforest (Figure 3). This stratification scheme explained
statistical analysis. 12% of the global variation and was highly significant (P <
0.0001). The average uptake for forests in the global data set
3.2. Analysis of Drivers at the Global Scale was 4.22 kg (CH4) ha 1yr 1, while that of the other
[18] Among the explanatory variables that we collected ecosystems was 1.60 kg (CH4) ha 1yr 1. The forest had
from the publications, several were continuous variables,
which lend themselves to regression analysis; others were
categorical variables, which lend themselves to analysis of
variance. For regression analyses on the continuous varia-
bles, we found a marginally significant relationship between
CH4 and latitude (P = 0.0679) and significant relationships
with annual rainfall (P = 0.0016) and mean annual temper-
ature (P = 0.0226). However, these relationships had low
predictive power: rainfall explained about 3% of the vari-
ation in the global data set; annual temperature explained
2%; and latitude explained 1%.
[19] For the analysis of the categorical variables, we
began by stratifying the global data set into three zones:
boreal, temperate and tropical. The stratification by zone
only explained 2% of the variation, but was significant (P =
0.0296) and the boreal, temperate and tropical soils had a
mean uptake of 2.38, 3.96 and 2.74 kg (CH4) ha 1yr 1,
respectively (Figure 2). The boreal zone was significantly
different from the temperate and tropical zones (P < 0.05), Figure 2. Data stratified by climatic zone. Box and
while the tropical and temperate zones were not different whisker plot of CH4 emissions in different climatological
from each other. The temperate zone had the highest zones. Boxes show 25th and 75th percentiles, and the
number of observations and the highest variability. All of median is indicated as a solid line within the boxes. The
the zones have several outliers, but the temperate zone whiskers show the 10th and 90th percentiles. Solid circles
showed the greatest variability with the greatest number indicate outliers; the dotted lines indicate the means.

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GB4013 DUTAUR AND VERCHOT: A GLOBAL INVENTORY OF THE SOIL CH4 SINK
Figure 3. Data stratified by ecosystem type. Box and
whisker plot of CH4 emissions in different ecosystems.
Boxes show 25th and 75th percentiles, and the median is
indicated as a solid line within the boxes. The whiskers
show the 10th and 90th percentiles. Solid circles indicate
outliers; the dotted lines indicate the means.
the highest number of observations (205) compared to the
other ecosystems (113) and the highest variability. The
coefficients of variation were 104% in the forest and 93%
for all other ecosystems combined.
[21] Finally, we stratified the global data set by soil
texture. Coarse textured soils had greater uptake than the
other texture classes (Figure 4). The stratification by texture
explained 1.5% of the variation, but was not significant (P =
0.2043). Coarse texture soils had mean uptake of 4.19 kg
(CH4) ha 1yr 1, while fine and medium texture soils had
uptake of 1.98 and 3.31 kg (CH4) ha 1yr 1, respectively.
Organic soils, which occurred primarily in the boreal zone,
had a mean flux of 3.05 kg (CH4) ha 1yr 1. The coefficients
of variation were between 69 and 128% for the texture classes
and increased with the number of observations.
3.3. Estimates of the Global Sink
[22] We calculated the effects of using each of these
variables to stratify the global data set on the estimated
global soil CH4 sink (Table 2). For comparison with other
stratification schemes, we also developed an estimate based
upon the unstratified data set (Table 2). The unstratified
estimate of 36 Tg yr 1 was greater than the stratified
estimates. Stratification by climatic zone or soil texture
gave a negligible reduction in the estimate, while stratifi-
cation by ecosystem reduced the global estimated sink
strength. In each one of the stratification schemes, the
largest part of the variation was captured in one stratum.
Stratification by climatic zone indicated that the highest
variability was in the temperate zone, while stratification by
ecosystem showed high variability in forest ecosystems.
Medium texture soils had the highest variability in the
texture class stratification. For each stratification scheme,
the highest variability was associated with the category of
the highest flux rate. A double stratification scheme shed
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further light on these results (Table 2). This scheme
explained 17% of the variation (P < 0.0001) and further
reduced the global estimate to 25 Tg yr 1. The temperate
forest class captured the highest degree of variability.
[23] We ran an ANOVA with a full model for these three
variables with interaction terms and the only significant
main effect was ecosystem (forest versus other). Two-way
interactions terms were all significant: climatic zone 
ecosystem type (P = 0.0707); ecosystem type  texture
(P = 0.0397); and climatic zone  texture (P = 0.0350). The
three-way interaction term was not significant. We then
tested a number of reduced models and found that a model
based on the ecosystem type plus the three two-way
interaction terms, provided the best alternative model,
where all of the effects in the model were significant at
the P < 0.05 level. This model explained 29% of the variation
and was highly significant (P < 0.0001). The presence of
significant interaction terms suggested that the best global
estimate from this data set could be obtained from a full
stratification by the three main categorical variables. On the
basis of this analysis, we developed a global estimate of the
soil CH4 sink using a full stratification (Table 3).
[24] Our best estimate of the global soil sink is 22 Tg yr 1.
It is impossible to calculate properly the uncertainty around
this value because we do not know the uncertainty associ-
ated with the area estimates. If we account only for the
uncertainty associated with the flux to calculate a standard
error, the range of uncertainty would be between 10 and
34 Tg yr 1 for the full stratification.
4. Discussion
4.1. Global Drivers of CH4 Sink Strength
[25] The single factor analyses indicated that the most
important global driver of CH4 uptake rates is the type of
ecosystem. Other authors have noted similar differences in
temperate and tropical soils [Del Grosso et al., 2000;
Figure 4. Data stratified by soil texture class. Box and
whisker plot of CH4 emissions in soils of different texture.
Boxes show 25th and 75th percentiles, and the median is
indicated as a solid line within the boxes. The whiskers
show the 10th and 90th percentiles. Solid circles indicate
outliers; the dotted lines indicate the means.
GB4013 DUTAUR AND VERCHOT: A GLOBAL INVENTORY OF THE SOIL CH4 SINK GB4013

Table 2. Estimates of CH4 Uptake by Soils With Different Stratification Schemesa

Number of Mean, Area, Total Flux, SE of
Stratification Level Measures kgCH4 ha 1 yr 1
Variance  106 km2 Tg yr 1 Total Flux
None 318 3.3 14.8 108.20 35.6 23.3
Climatic zone
Boreal 65 2.4 7.5 20.83 5.0 7.1
Temperate 163 4.0 22.6 50.07 19.8 18.6
Tropical 90 2.7 4.4 37.30 10.2 8.3
Total 35.0 21.6
Ecosystem
Forest 205 4.2 19.3 42.01 17.7 12.9
Other 113 1.6 2.2 66.19 10.6 9.3
Total 28.3 15.9
Soil texture
Organic 54 3.1 9.2 2.14 0.7 0.9
Coarse 85 4.2 21.1 22.73 9.5 11.3
Medium 121 3.3 18.0 63.94 21.1 24.6
Fine 46 2.0 1.8 19.39 3.8 3.9
Total 35.2 27.4
Climatic zone + ecosystem
Boreal Forest 51 2.6 8.0 16.87 4.5 6.7
Other 14 1.4 4.3 3.96 0.6 2.2
Subtotal (zone) 5.1
Temperate Forest 92 5.7 31.5 5.82 3.3 3.4
Other 71 1.7 2.3 44.25 7.6 7.9
Subtotal (zone) 10.9
Tropical Forest 62 3.3 4.8 19.32 6.4 5.4
Other 28 1.4 1.2 17.98 2.6 3.7
Subtotal (zone) 9.0
Total 25.0 12.9
a
The first estimate shows mean and standard error estimates from the data set without stratification. The global data set is
then stratified by zone or ecosystem or by soil texture individually, and then by zone + ecosystem.

Verchot et al., 2000]. Uptake rates were consistently higher
in forests compared to all other ecosystems across all
climatic zones. Forest soils differ from the soil of other
ecosystems by the presence of a forest floor. As a result, the
upper layers of the soil profile have high organic matter
content, high microbial biomass, low bulk density and high
porosity. Thus one would expect high consumption rates in
these soil profiles. Biological activity is high, and with low
bulk density, diffusion of atmospheric CH4 into the forest
soil is rapid. This data set is not adequate to provide more
mechanistic answers, but perhaps the high variances in
forest ecosystems are due to factors associated with the
nature of the forest floor, which is largely determined by the
floristic composition of the forest ecosystem and by other
biotic factors such as earthworm activity [Finzi et al., 1998;
Finzi and Schlesinger, 2002; Carreiro et al., 2000; Verchot
et al., 2001].
[26] The fact that soil texture accounted for an important
part of the variation in the global data set is consistent with
current thinking on the biogeochemical controls of CH4
oxidation in soils [Striegl, 1993; Dörr et al., 1993; Del
Grosso et al., 2000]. Verchot et al. [2000] summarized the
data for forest sites in the neotropics and noted that fine-
textured soils generally consumed between 1.5 and 2.0 kg
(CH4) ha 1yr 1, while medium and coarse textured soils
consumed >4.0 kg (CH4) ha 1yr 1. Other authors have
shown that coarse textured soils have higher oxidizing
capacity than fine textured soils [see, e.g., Boeckx et al.,
1997]. As Striegl [1993] noted, because gas transport of O2
and CH4 are the most important factors affecting CH4
fluxes, and soil texture strongly affects diffusivity of gases
within soils, Verchot et al. [2000] concluded that texture class
was more important than other factors at the biome scale.
[27] Coarse texture soils make up about 21% of the
world’s soils and contribute to only 22 percent of the global
sink. Thus, despite high CH4 uptake rates, their contribution
to the global sink is proportionately low. Medium texture
soils make up about 59% of the world’s soils and contribute
60% of the global sink. Organic soils are currently under
represented in the global data set. The available data suggest
that these soils make an important contribution only in the
boreal zone. Given the small area that these soils occupy in
other climatic zones, it is unlikely that this view will change
with more data from these zones.
[28] For the full stratification, temperate forests with
coarse soils had the highest uptake CH4 values (7.5 kg
CH4 ha 1 yr 1), and a high variance. This value is higher
than the median range of 1.6 6.4 kg CH4 ha 1 yr 1
suggested by Smith et al. [2000], although our value was
based upon the mean rather than the median. Interestingly,
the soil texture effect seems to be important only in temperate
forests, which explains the interaction terms in the full rank
model. In other ecosystems, CH4 uptake on coarse texture
soils is similar to uptake rates in other texture classes.
[29] Seasonal patterns of soil water content closely follow
the pattern of rainfall and several authors have noted that
CH4 uptake also follows this pattern [Verchot et al., 2000;
Kiese et al., 2003]. A simplistic extension of this observa-
tion suggests that annual rainfall might be a global predictor
of CH4 uptake because soils are drier for longer periods in
low rainfall areas. This of course ignores the complex
interaction between soil, vegetation type, and water avail-
ability on the size and nature of the soil microbial commu-

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Table 3. Estimates of CH4 Uptake by Soils With a Zone Plus Ecosystem Plus Soil Texture Stratification
Scheme
Number of Mean, Area, Total Flux, SE of
Stratification Level Measures kgCH4 ha 1 yr 1
Variance  106 km2 Tg yr 1 Total Flux
Climatic zone + ecosystem + soil texture
Boreal Forest Organic 28 3.6 10.0 1.76 0.6 1.1
Coarse 6 3.2 7.6 3.06 1.0 3.4
Medium 14 0.5 0.2 11.18 0.6 1.4
Fine 1 2.0 – 0.87 0.2 –
Sub-subtotal (zone + ecosystem) 2.4
Boreal Other Organic 8 1.7 7.7 0.05 0.0 0.1
Coarse 3 1.0 0.1 1.08 0.1 0.2
Medium 3 1.0 0.2 2.77 0.3 0.7
Fine – – – 0.06 – –
Sub-subtotal (zone + ecosystem) 0.4
Subtotal (zone) 2.8
Temperate Forest Organic 7 4.6 10.3 0.08 0.0 0.1
Coarse 30 7.5 34.0 1.00 0.7 1.1
Medium 43 5.6 37.1 3.60 2.0 3.4
Fine 12 2.3 1.5 1.14 0.3 0.4
Sub-subtotal (zone + ecosystem) 3.0
Temperate Other Organic 9 1.4 1.5 0.10 0.0 0.0
Coarse 18 1.7 1.7 10.35 1.8 3.2
Medium 36 1.7 2.1 28.24 4.9 6.8
Fine 6 1.2 4.6 5.56 0.7 4.9
Sub-subtotal (zone + ecosystem) 7.4
Subtotal (zone) 10.4
Tropical Forest Organic 2 3.6 – 0.12 0.0 –
Coarse 16 4.3 6.8 2.43 1.0 1.6
Medium 19 3.8 3.8 9.32 3.6 4.2
Fine 21 2.1 1.5 7.45 1.6 2.0
Sub-subtotal (zone + ecosystem) 6.2
Tropical Other Organic 0 0.03
Coarse 12 0.9 1.4 4.81 0.4 1.6
Medium 6 2.3 0.6 8.83 2.0 2.7
Fine 6 1.5 1.1 4.31 0.6 1.9
Sub-subtotal (zone + ecosystem) 3.0
Subtotal (zone) 9.2
Total for the full stratification 22.4 12.1

nity. We did find a significant linear relationship between
CH4 uptake rates and total annual rainfall, but the relation-
ship had low predictive value and was positive. It appears
that this relationship is not explaining the effects of physical
restriction of water in soils on diffusion, but is an indicator
of the biological controls of the soil microbial community
on uptake.
4.2. Success of Stratification
[30] The question that remains is whether the stratification
that we used was successful in providing a better estimate of
the sink strength. Stratification reduced the variance in the
majority of strata each time. In the stratification by climate
zones, the variances in the boreal and tropical strata were
lower than the global variance, but variance in the temperate
stratum was larger than the global variance. In the stratifi-
cation by climatic zone + ecosystem, the variances were
lower in all strata except for the temperate forest.
[31] Thus stratification had a significant effect on the
estimate of the magnitude of the terrestrial sink strength
by allowing us to compartmentalize the largest source of
variation. More importantly, stratification compartmental-
ized the variance and provided narrower standard error
ranges. In this sense, the stratification has been successful
in producing a more realistic estimate by accounting for
some of the variation among biomes. In Table 3, for
example, subtotals for the total temperate zone flux was
10.4 Tg yr 1, which was much lower than the estimate of
19.8 Tg yr 1 derived from the simple climatic zone strat-
ification (Table 2). When there was no large source of
variation within a climatic stratum, the nature of the sub-
stratification had little bearing on the estimate. For example,
the total flux estimated for the tropical zone in the simple
climatic zone stratification is similar to that estimated by the
climatic zone + ecosystem + soil texture stratification.
4.3. Comparison With Other Estimates
[32] Estimates of the global soil sink for atmospheric CH4
have been made by a number of authors and fall between 17
and 44 Tg yr 1 (Table 4). These efforts have involved both
extrapolation of field studies and modeling. The modeling
efforts have attempted to capture the effects of key biogeo-
chemical drivers on soil CH4 consumption, while most of
the stratify-and-multiply approaches have focused on cli-
matic zone and ecosystem effects. The one exception to this
is the estimate of Dörr et al. [1993], who based their
extrapolation on soil texture stratification. These authors
used the results of intensive measurements made at five
sites in southern Germany and spot measurements at a wide
range of sites in Central Europe and in different parts of the

7 of 9
GB4013 DUTAUR AND VERCHOT: A GLOBAL INVENTORY OF THE SOIL CH4 SINK
Table 4. Estimates of the Global Soil Methane Sink From
Different Sources Compared With Our Estimation Obtained
Without and With Stratification
CH4 Sink,
1
Reference Tg CH4 yr
From modeled estimates
Potter et al. [1996] 17
Ridgwell et al. [1999] 38
From extrapolation estimates
Dörr et al. [1993] 29
Mosier et al. [1998] 44
Potter et al. [1996] 21
Smith et al. [2000] 29
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [2001] 30
Our estimate without stratification 36
Our estimate with full stratification 22
world to calibrate the relationship between texture and CH4
consumption. They produced an estimate of the global soil
sink assuming that this parameterization was valid for soils
across the globe.
[33] Other authors have produced estimates of the global
soil sink. Mosier et al. [1998] derived global CH4 uptake
from the references given by Reeburgh et al. [1993] and the
land use data of Bouwman [1990]. They estimated CH4
uptake rates for 10 land cover types. A major difference
between their estimates and ours is the difference in land
cover definitions between the sources of land cover data.
Smith et al. [2000] derived an estimate based upon data
from 109 sites and estimated that while the mean was 29 Tg
yr1, the range of uncertainty was very large, between 7 and
109 Tg yr 1. These authors used the standard deviation of
the transformed data to estimate the range of uncertainty
associated with the estimate rather than standard error of the
mean, which explains the wide range in their reported
uncertainty compared to our narrower range. The standard
error would have provided a more realistic uncertainty
estimate.
[34] Potter et al. [1996] made both a modeling estimate
and an extrapolation estimate. For the extrapolation esti-
mate, forest tundra was not included because it had been
characterized in the literature as a variably wet environment
where high methane production can occur during thaw
season, resulting in net annual CH4 emissions to the
atmosphere. Data availability was also a problem for this
extrapolation estimate. For six of the 14 major ecosystems
where they produced an estimate, three or fewer site data
sets could be used for the extrapolation to annual fluxes.
Over one half of the measured flux data sets came from
temperate sites. Making an estimate for tropical grasslands
and savannas was also problematic, owing to variability in
soil condition associated with fires and human management,
and the fact that several authors reported that CH4 emission
was present at some times during the year.
[35] The model described by Ridgwell et al. [1999] also
takes a mechanistic approach to determine the global
consumption of CH4 by soils incorporating descriptions of
the most important controlling factors related to both
gaseous diffusion and microbial activity. Ridgwell’s model
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predicted that the highest uptake rates would occur in dry
tropical ecosystems, whereas the experimental data summa-
rized here suggests that forest ecosystems have the highest
uptake rates.
5. Conclusion
[36] The increase in available data from around the world
over the past several years has allowed us to produce a more
well constrained estimate of the global soil CH4 sink than
has been possible previously. We used 318 data represen-
tative of a wide variety of ecosystems, climates and soil
types, and produced a number of estimates based upon
different stratification schemes that cover the lower to
middle of the range of the other estimates. Our estimate
of 22 ± 12 Tg yr 1 CH4 is toward the lower end of the
accepted range for the soil sink.
[37] Just as for process based modeling estimates, this
study shows that incorporation of mechanistic elements into
the stratification scheme improves the global estimate and
reduces uncertainty in extrapolations from field data. With-
out stratification, the range of the global estimate was
between 12 and 60 and the best simple stratification scheme
produced a range of 14 to 57. The standard errors of the
different strata point to the opportunities to improve further
the estimates of the soil sink. In the boreal zone, the
standard error is highest in forests with coarse texture soils
and the number of observations on these soils was low. In
the temperate and tropical forests, highest standard errors
were associated with medium texture soils. Both of these
strata have high flux rates and there were a large number of
observations, which points to the need for more targeted
mechanistic work. Nonforest ecosystems are not well rep-
resented in the data set and, at least in the temperate zone,
the standard errors associated with these estimates are
relatively high. Clearly more observations in these situa-
tions are warranted. Thus efforts to better account for the
variability within these strata will make the greatest contri-
bution to improving the global sink estimate.
[38] This study points to a number of gaps in the global
data set. One of the key findings is that a number of
important ecosystems continue to be underrepresented in
the global data set. In particular, grasslands in both the
temperate and tropical zones are underrepresented, as are
chaparral ecosystems. Desert ecosystems are also underrep-
resented, and although fluxes are low in these ecosystems,
they represent a large portion of the earth’s surface. Thus
efforts to fill these gaps should be a high priority. Perhaps
highest priority should be given to grasslands. Any assess-
ment of the global soil sink may be seriously in error until
more representative data for the whole land surface are
available.
[39] Finally, this study raises questions about the sources
of variability in temperate forests soils. The effects of soil
texture were most pronounced in temperate forests and high
uptake rates were associated with high variances. We do not
understand the source of the large degree of variability in
these soils, and more mechanistic work to elucidate the
underlying processes will be helpful.
GB4013 DUTAUR AND VERCHOT: A GLOBAL INVENTORY OF THE SOIL CH4 SINK
[40] Acknowledgments. Support for this research was provided by
the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry. We would also like to
thank two anonymous reviewers who provided comments on an earlier draft
of this paper.
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L. Dutaur and L. V. Verchot, International Centre for Research in
Agroforestry, United Nations Avenue, P.O. Box 30677-00100, Nairobi,
Kenya. (l.verchot@cgiar.org)