High spatiotemporal variability of methane concentrations challenges estimates of emissions across vegetated coastal ecosystems

Coastal methane (CH4) emissions dominate the global ocean CH4 budget and can offset the blue carbon storage capacity of vegetated coastal ecosystems. However, current estimates lack systematic, high-resolution, and long-term data from these intrinsically heterogeneous environments, making coastal budgets sensitive to statistical assumptions and uncertainties. Using continuous CH4 concentrations, delta C-13-CH4 values, and CH4 sea-air fluxes across four seasons in three globally pervasive coastal habitats, we show that the CH4 distribution is spatially patchy over meter-scales and highly variable in time. Areas with mixed vegetation, macroalgae, and their surrounding sediments exhibited a spatiotemporal variability of surface water CH4 concentrations ranging two orders of magnitude (i.e., 6-460 nM CH4) with habitat-specific seasonal and diurnal patterns. We observed (1) delta C-13-CH signatures that revealed habitat-specific CH4 production and consumption pathways, (2) daily peak concentration events that could change >100% within hours across all habitats, and (3) a high thermal sensitivity of the CH4 distribution signified by apparent activation energies of similar to 1 eV that drove seasonal changes. Bootstrapping simulations show that scaling the CH4 distribution from few samples involves large errors, and that similar to 50 concentration samples per day are needed to resolve the scale and drivers of the natural variability and improve the certainty of flux calculations by up to 70%. Finally, we identify northern temperate coastal habitats with mixed vegetation and macroalgae as understudied but seasonally relevant atmospheric CH4 sources (i.e., releasing >= 100 mu mol CH4 m(-2) day(-1) in summer). Due to the large spatial and temporal heterogeneity of coastal environments, high-resolution measurements will improve the reliability of CH4 estimates and confine the habitat-specific contribution to regional and global CH4 budgets.

Automated summary

Coastal methane emissions play a dominant role in the global ocean methane budget, but there is a lack of systematic, high-resolution, and long-term data, leading to uncertainty in coastal budgets. By studying continuous methane concentrations, delta C-13-CH4 values, and methane sea-air fluxes, researchers found that the distribution of methane in coastal habitats is patchy and highly variable over time. The concentrations of methane in different habitats can vary greatly, and there are specific seasonal and diurnal patterns. High-resolution measurements are needed to improve the reliability of methane estimates and understand the contribution of different habitats to regional and global methane budgets.