NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF ATMOSPHERIC METHANE TRENDS OVER THE LAST 150 YEARS^*

A global two-dimensional chemistry model is developed to study long-term trends of CH4 since industrial revolution.The sources of CH4,CO and NOx are parameterized as functions of latitude and time.With two long-term emission scenarios,long-term trends of CH4 are simulated.The results have a good agreement with observation from ice cores.The modeled CH4 increased from 760 ppbv in 1840 to 1611.9 ppbv in 1991, while the modeled number concentration of tropospheric OH decreased from 7.17×105 cm-3 in 1840 to 5.79×105 cm-3 in 1991.The increase of atmospheric CH4 can be explained by the increase of emission of CH4 and build-up because of decrease of OH radicals that remove CH4 from the atmosphere.The model is also used to simulate the distribution of CH4.Comparisons between the model results and observations show that the model can simulate both latitudinal distribution and seasonal variation of CH4 well.