Global Lake Methane Emissions Climatology with Ice-Cover Seasonality

Global gridded data provides lake surface area and open water methane (CH4) emissions at a 0.25-degree resolution, representing an annual climatology for 2003-2015. The dataset synthesizes flux measurements from 575 individual lake systems and 893 aggregated values, classified into seven ecoclimatic types. It incorporates satellite-derived ice-cover phenology to regulate emission seasonality and merges HydroLAKES with remote-sensing data for lake area.

Use Cases

• Modeling global methane budgets from freshwater sources using gridded flux and lake area data.
• Analyzing the relationship between ecoclimatic lake types and their specific methane emission rates.
• Studying the impact of ice-cover phenology and freeze-thaw dynamics on seasonal emission patterns.
• Estimating exploratory fluxes associated with ice melt and seasonal water-column turnover events.
• Validating or downscaling climate models with spatially explicit methane emission climatologies.

Strengths

• Derived from a substantial empirical foundation, compiling data from 575 lake systems and 893 flux measurements.
• Integrates multiple data sources, including satellite microwave observations for ice cover and merged HydroLAKES/CCI-IW data for lake area.
• Provides a long-term, stable climatological average (2003-2015) for consistent global analysis.
• Classifies lakes into seven distinct ecoclimatic types, enabling ecosystem-specific analysis.

Limitations

• Column names and specific data structure within the NetCDF files are not documented in the provided sources.
• Conflicting last update dates exist between platforms (2012-12 -31 and 2026-03-13), creating uncertainty about metadata freshness.
• The dataset represents a climatological average, not year-specific time-series data, limiting analysis of interannual variability.

Provenance

Source

ORNL_CLOUD

Collection Method

Compilation of published flux data merged with satellite remote-sensing products (HydroLAKES, CCI-IW, microwave ice observations).

Time Range

2003 to 2015

Freshness

2026-03 13 02:04:49.594549

Geography

Global