The European Space Agency collects data from the Sentinel-5P, Sentinel-3 and Sentinel-2 satellites. Monitoring methane emissions from spacein new progress in the fight against climate change
Methane is A powerful greenhouse gas and the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide. Despite its short lifetime – about 10 years in the atmosphere – a ton of methane can retain 30 times more heat than a ton of carbon dioxide over a century.
Its “normal” sources are natural processes, such as wetlands, or human activities, such as agriculture, but then… There are so-called super emitters, which release a disproportionately large amount of gas Compared to other exporters.
Super emitters They are typically found in industrial facilities, such as petroleum activities, coal mines, or even landfills, with equipment or infrastructure problems leading to significant methane leaks. These are the ones that ESA wants to identify to focus efforts.
To date, detection of methane emissions has relied largely on… Copernicus Sentinel-5P. the satellite Tropomi integrates a tool that produces an accurate global map of daily gas concentrationsAnd monitoring the Earth’s atmosphere.
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Now researchers from Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON) announced the establishment of A new algorithm uses machine learning to automatically identify methane emission super plumes in data recorded by Sentinel-5P Is that It also automatically calculates the associated emissions Based on measured concentrations and simultaneous wind speeds.
And If the “smudge” is visible from space, it is “dangerous.”says Bram Masakirs, one of the co-authors of the study published by the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, which was cited by the European Space Agency.
“For the first time, we now have a good picture of the identity of these super emitters,” the researcher highlights.
The study indicates 2,974 methane clouds detected in 2021. Forty-five percent of it originates from oil and gas facilities, but there are also plumes from urban areas (35%) and coal mines (20%).
According to the researchers, the information will be used by United Nations International Methane Emissions Observatory to Find a solution with the responsible companies or authorities.
Efforts to reduce methane emissions do not end here. Space satellite technology is integrated for, It not only detects the presence of gas, but also precisely locates and measures the emissions.
With daily global coverage, However, Sentinel-5P is known to be able to accurately determine the presence of methane anywhere in the world It suffers from relatively “coarse” spatial resolution7×5.5 km.
On the other hand, the Sentinel-2 satellites are equipped with multi-band instruments that are not designed to monitor methane concentrations, but The exact locations of large leaks (emissions in excess of a ton per hour) can be determined with remarkable accuracy of up to 20 metres.. But they don’t have daily global coverage.
