Alpine wetlands are an important natural source of methane (CH₄) to the atmosphere. However, the temporal variations and main driving factors of CH₄ fluxes in alpine wetlands are not yet well understood. In this study, CH₄ fluxes were measured from an alpine wetland in the Qinghai Lake using eddy covariance (EC) technique. Strong seasonal variability in the daily CH₄ fluxes was observed, ranging from − 18.24 mg CH₄ m^− 2 d^− 1 during the non-growing season to 117.44 mg CH₄ m^− 2 d^− 1 during the growing season in 2017. The annual CH₄ budget was 9.41 g CH₄ m^− 2. The growing season CH₄ flux accounted for 91.5 % of the annual budget. At the daily scale, the CH₄ fluxes increased significantly as the net radiation, air temperature, vapor pressure deficit, soil temperature, and soil volumetric water content at 5 cm depth increased. Additionally, correlation analysis also revealed that daily CH₄ flux was significantly related to CO₂ flux when daily CO₂ flux was negative, but there was no correlation when daily CO₂ flux was positive. Path analysis showed that seasonal variations of soil temperature at 5 cm depth and CO₂ flux had strong direct effects on daily CH₄ fluxes.

高山湿地是大气中甲烷（CH ₄）的重要自然来源。然而，对高山湿地CH ₄通量的时间变化和主要驱动因素尚未完全了解。在这项研究中，使用涡度协方差（EC）技术从青海湖的一个高山湿地中测量了CH ₄通量。观察到每日CH ₄通量的强烈季节性变化，范围从非生长季节的− 18.24 mg CH ₄ m ^{− 2} d ^{− 1}到2017年生长季节的117.44 mg CH ₄ m ^{− 2} d ^{− 1}。 CH _4的年度预算为9.41 g CH₄ m ^-2。CH ₄的生长季通量占年度预算的91.5％。在日尺度上，CH ₄通量随着净辐射，空气温度，蒸气压赤字，土壤温度和5 cm深度土壤体积水含量的增加而显着增加。此外，相关分析还显示，当每日CO ₂通量为负时，每日CH ₄通量与CO ₂通量显着相关，但是当每日CO ₂通量为正时，则不存在相关性。通径分析表明，土壤深度在5 cm处的季节性变化和CO ₂通量对日均CH ₄有很强的直接影响。 通量。