Biogeosciences www.biogeosciences.net 1726-4170 1726-4189 6 12 2009 10.5194/bg-6-3035-2009 http://www.biogeosciences.net/6/3035/2009/ http://www.biogeosciences.net/6/3035/2009/bg-6-3035-2009.html http://www.biogeosciences.net/6/3035/2009/bg-6-3035-2009.pdf 3035 3051 2009-12-16 Sensitivity analysis of a wetland methane emission model based on temperate and arctic wetland sites J. van Huissteden ko.van.huissteden@geo.falw.vu.nl A. M. R. Petrescu D. M. D. Hendriks K. T. Rebel Vrije Universiteit, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Hydrology and Geo-environmental Sciences Group, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands Deltares, Department Groundwater Mangement, P.O. Box 85467, 3508AL Utrecht, The Netherlands Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development and Innovation, Research Group Environmental Sciences, Universiteit Utrecht, Faculteit Geowetenschappen Departement IMW Heidelberglaan 2, Office 1101, P.O. Box 80115, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands Modelling of wetland CH4 fluxes using wetland soil emission models is used to determine the size of this natural source of CH4 emission on local to global scale. Most process models of CH4 formation and soil-atmosphere CH4 transport processes operate on a plot scale. For large scale emission modelling (regional to global scale) upscaling of this type of model requires thorough analysis of the sensitivity of these models to parameter uncertainty. We applied the GLUE (Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Analysis) methodology to a well-known CH4 emission model, the Walter-Heimann model, as implemented in the PEATLAND-VU model. The model is tested using data from two temperate wetland sites and one arctic site. The tests include experiments with different objective functions, which quantify the fit of the model results to the data. 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