Physical laws predict methane hotspots in global mountain waters

Authors

ZHU, D., Rashid, I., Walter, K., Tong, S., Bhattarai, N., Zou, X., Joshi, S., Kuhn, M., Liu, J., Jiang, H., Chen, H., Wu, N.

Abstract

Current global methane budgets overlook a key driver: elevation-regulated atmospheric pressure. Here we show that methane ebullition is more than four times higher above 3000 m than at sea level, and that this enhancement is governed by Henry's law and the ideal gas law, with theoretical predictions that agree near-perfectly with observed trends. Our findings reveal that mountain aquatic ecosystems represent unaccounted methane hotspots in global inventories.

Preprint server: bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 07 Aug 2026.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this preprint? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.