Nature Communications (Jan 2020)

The Red Sea Deep Water is a potent source of atmospheric ethane and propane

  • E. Bourtsoukidis,
  • A. Pozzer,
  • T. Sattler,
  • V. N. Matthaios,
  • L. Ernle,
  • A. Edtbauer,
  • H. Fischer,
  • T. Könemann,
  • S. Osipov,
  • J.-D. Paris,
  • E. Y. Pfannerstill,
  • C. Stönner,
  • I. Tadic,
  • D. Walter,
  • N. Wang,
  • J. Lelieveld,
  • J. Williams

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14375-0
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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The Middle East is known to emit large amounts of non-methane hydrocarbon pollutants to the atmosphere, but the sources are poorly characterized. Here the authors discover a new source—deep water in the Red Sea—and calculate that its emissions exceed rates of several high gas-production countries.