Northern hemispheric atmospheric ethane trends in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (2006–2016) with reference to methane and propane

Abstract

Abstract. Methane, ethane, and propane are among the most abundant hydrocarbons in the atmosphere. These compounds have many emission sources in common and are all primarily removed through OH oxidation. Their mixing ratios and long-term trends in the upper troposphere and stratosphere are rarely reported due to the paucity of measurements. In this study, we present long-term (2006–2016) northern hemispheric ethane, propane, and methane data from airborne observation in the upper troposphere-lower stratosphere (UTLS) region from the IAGOS-CARIBIC project. The methane and propane observations provide additional information for understanding northern hemispheric ethane trends, which is the major focus of this study. The linear trends, moving averages, nonlinear trends and monthly variations of ethane, methane and propane in 2006–2016 are presented for the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere over 5 regions (whole Northern Hemisphere, Europe, North America, Asia and the rest of the world). The growth rates of ethane, methane, and propane in the upper troposphere are −2.24 % yr−1, 0.33 % yr−1, and −0.78 % yr−1, respectively, and in the lower stratosphere they are −3.27 % yr−1, 0.26 % yr−1, and −4.91 % yr−1, respectively, in 2006–2016. This dataset is of value to future global ethane budget estimates and the optimization of current ethane inventories. The data are publicly accessible at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6536109 (Li et al., 2022a).