Unveiling the impact of soil methane sink on atmospheric methane concentrations in 2020

In 2020, anthropogenic methane (CH4) emissions decreased due to COVID-19 containment policies, but there was a substantial increase in the concentration of atmospheric CH4. Previous research suggested that this abnormal increase was linked to higher wetland CH4 emissions and a decrease in the atmospheric CH4 sink. However, the impact of changes in the soil CH4 sink remained unknown. To address this, we utilized a process-based model to quantify the alterations in the soil CH4 sink of terrestrial ecosystems between 2019 and 2020. By implementing the model with various datasets, we consistently observed an increase in the global soil CH4 sink, reaching up to 0.35 ± 0.06 Tg in 2020 compared to 2019. This increase was primarily attributed to warmer soil temperatures in northern high latitudes. These findings emphasize the importance of considering the CH4 sink in terrestrial ecosystems, as neglecting it can lead to an underestimation of both emission increases and reductions in atmospheric ..., , , # Unveiling the impact of soil methane sink on atmospheric methane concentrations in 2020

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.70rxwdc67](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.70rxwdc67)

The dataset includes the raw data for all the figures in the article, as well as the R code for the Soil Methanotrophy Model(MEMO).

## Description of the data and file structure

*Fig.1a*: The global soil methane sink for the year 2019, computed by the MEMO model. The unit is milligrams per square meter per year (mg m-2 year-1).The data has a resolution of 1x1 degree raster, covering global land areas, with the geographic coordinate system being the World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84). It can be opened using the `raster` package in R.

*Fig.1b*: The global soil methane sink for the year 2020, computed by the MEMO model. The unit is milligrams per square meter per year (mg m-2 year-1).The data has a resolution of 1x1 degree raster, covering global land areas, with the geographic coordinate system being the World G...