Methane release from the terrestrial ecosystems of greenhouse climates: Challenges and potential (Invited)

Recent circulation and geochemical modelling suggests that atmospheric methane could have been an important driver of global temperatures during past greenhouse climates. Such conclusions are largely based on our understanding of modern wetland biogeochemistry, including the impact of hydrology, temperature and primary photosynthetic production on rates of methanogenesis. However, validation of these parameters, and of course direct validation of past wetland methane fluxes or atmospheric methane concentrations, are either challenging or currently not possible. Here, we discuss prospects for using lipid biomarkers (and complementary approaches) in lignites to interrogate methane cycling and the environmental conditions that drive it. Potential new proxies include the MBT/CBT index from which mean air temperatures can be reconstructed, allowing direct validation that temperate and polar wetlands experienced greater temperatures during greenhouse times. Second, compound-specific dD values, when coupled to reconstructed vegetation and charcoal records, can provide expanded insight into past wetland hydrology. And finally, the concentrations, distributions and carbon isotopic compositions of archaeal ether lipids and bacterial hopanoids provide direct evidence for increased methanogen or methanotroph biomasss, respectively. This final proxy is based directly on our ongoing investigations of a half dozen Holocene and modern peat deposits; in these, archaeol concentrations range from 0 to 30 ug per g of peat, and putative methanotroph hopanoids represent less than 3% if the total bacteriohopanoids. We illustrate the potential for such an integrated approach using the SE England Cobham lignite deposited during the Palaeocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). During the PETM, an increase in precipitation and/or runoff and a cessation of fires (collectively revealed by lithologic and vegetation change) apparently drove a dramatic increase in methane production as revealed by a -40 per mil shift in the carbon isotopic composition of hopanes. Such values suggest that after the change in hydrology, a significant proportion of the hopanes, perhaps >50%, derived directly from methanotrophic bacteria, in marked contrast to Holocene peats. We will discuss a range of other Cenozoic lignites and compare their biomarker distributions to those of Holocene peats, and propose an overall strategy for testing the hypotheses emerging from biogeochemical models.