Articles | Volume 14, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-3469-2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-3469-2021
Research article
 | 
12 May 2021
Research article |  | 12 May 2021

Beef cattle methane emissions measured with tracer-ratio and inverse dispersion modelling techniques

Mei Bai, José I. Velazco, Trevor W. Coates, Frances A. Phillips, Thomas K. Flesch, Julian Hill, David G. Mayer, Nigel W. Tomkins, Roger S. Hegarty, and Deli Chen

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Cited articles

Bai, M.: Methane emissions from livestock measured by novel spectroscopic techniques, Doctor of Philosophy PhD Thesis, School of Chemistry, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia, 303 pp., 2010. 
Bai, M., Flesch, K. T., Trouvé, R., Coates, T. W., Butterly, C., Bhatta, B., Hill, J., and Chen, D.: Gas Emissions during Cattle Manure Composting and Stockpiling, J. Environ. Qual., 49, 228–235, https://doi.org/10.1002/jeq2.20029, 2020. 
Bindon, B. M.: Genesis of the Cooperative Research Centre for the Cattle and Beef Industry: integration of resources for beef quality research (1993–2000), Aust. J. Exp. Agr., 41, 843–853, https://doi.org/10.1071/EA00067, 2001. 
Charmley, E., Williams, S. R. O., Moate, P. J., Hegarty, R. S., Herd, R. M., Oddy, V. H., Reyenga, P., Staunton, K. M., Anderson, A., and Hannah, M. C.: A universal equation to predict methane production of forage-fed cattle in Australia, Anim. Prod. Sci., 56, 169–180, https://doi.org/10.1071/AN15365, 2016. 
Cottle, D. J., Nolan, J. V., and Wiedemann, S. G.: Ruminant enteric methane mitigation: a review, Anim. Prod. Sci., 51, 491–514, https://doi.org/10.1071/AN10163, 2011. 
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Short summary
The development and validation of management practices to mitigate methane (CH4) emissions from livestock require accurate emission measurements. We compared the inverse dispersion modelling (IDM) and tracer-ratio techniques to measure CH4 emissions from cattle. Both measurements agreed well but were higher than IPCC estimates. We suggest that the IDM approach can provide an accurate method of estimating cattle emissions, and IPCC estimates may have larger uncertainties.