Yes, wetlands are a huge issue regarding greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon budgets have had to be revised in light of more and more data showing enormous carbon dioxide emissions from wetlands that have been disturbed. Indonesia alone is said to be a contender for the top carbon dioxide emitter among nations when wetland emissions are accounted for. Wetlands do not emit carbon dioxide in the flooded condition. To the contrary, in the wetland state, organic carbon produced by photosynthesis will be sequestered and preserved, as the waterlogged conditions make oxygen virtually unavailable below the surface, and decomposition therefore nearly impossible. There are fears regarding methane emissions from wetlands. Fear not. If there is even one centimeter of oxidized soil at the surface, nearly all methane emitted will be captured and converted to carbon dioxide before it ever leaves the ground. While well-founded concerns about carbon dioxide emission from drained (cultivated or otherwise disturbed) wetlands are finally getting the attention they deserve, and unfounded concerns about methane emissions from them have been in the public eye, wetlands are also major emitters of nitrous oxide. Under some conditions, the global warming potential of the nitrous oxide emitted from disturbed wetlands exceeds the global warming potential of their carbon dioxide emission (which is huge by any standard). This is partly because nitrous oxide is such a powerful greenhouse gas, with just 1 kg having the global warming potential equivalent of more than 300 kg of carbon dioxide. Because of this, even relatively small revisions to the total flux of nitrous oxide equate to large revisions in its estimated contribution to total global warming.

- Microbiological processes and the various oxidation/reduction reactions that either produce greenhouse gases, prevent their production, or consume them virtually as quickly as they are produced - Why no chemical equilbria can be invoked to predict the steady state (or not) concentrations of greenhouse gases whose production is regulated by organisms - Why nitrous oxide is such an important greenhouse gas whose contribution has been grossly underestimated - Why the contribution of methane, although important, has been grossly overestimated - Ecosystem processes that regulate carbon cycling and carbon dioxide sequestration - Land management practices that influence the release of greenhouse gases - Greenhouse gas emission/sequestration in wetlands