Some startling findings were published by scientists working with data from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-5 satellite. In the journal Science, the team reported that they had found over a thousand instances of huge releases of methane in the atmosphere in the year 2019. The team said that most of the leaks were from oil and gas facilities, with the leaks concentrated over the largest oil and gas basins across the world.
The first instrument in space that can see methane emissions directly is the Tropomi. She says that the instrument led to the discovery of huge methane leaks in Turkmenistan.
The current constellation of satellites can see 10% of the methane emissions of oil and gas on the planet.
Global imperative to better detection of where methane is coming from Methane emissions from oil, gas and coal are 70% higher than what governments are reporting, according to an analysis by the International Energy Agency. If the world is ever going to achieve significant reductions of this gas, it needs to know where it is coming from.
In the next few years, several new satellites with far higher resolutions are planned to be launched, including MethaneSat by the Environmental Defense Fund, and the first two satellites from Carbon Mapper.
Because it’s a short-lived climate pollutant, methane gives us an opportunity to actually slow down warming
It is hoped that these satellites will help to stop the emissions in the first place.
When it comes to climate action, methane is the second largest contributor to climate change after CO 2, but until recently has received far less attention.
Methane is a much more potent warming gas in the short term than CO 2 is. It is more powerful than CO 2 after 20 years and less powerful after 100 years. Methane has an outsize impact on global warming in the short term.
Between 2000 and 2017, methane emissions increased by around 10%. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in its sixth assessment report last year that human-caused methane is responsible for 25% of the 1.1C warming we are seeing today. If the world succeeds in keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5C, it will have a huge impact.
Jonathan Banks, international director for super pollutants at the Clean Air Task Force, says that until recently, they didn't have a full understanding of how much methane was having on the climate. It's not just how warm the planet gets, it's also how fast we heat up.
After decades of focusing on CO 2, last year more than 100 countries signed up to a pledge at the Cop26 climate change conference to slash global methane emissions by 30% by 2030.
It is not easy to know where methane comes from.
The majority of methane emissions on the planet are invisible because they are not being monitored.
Wetlands are a huge source of methane, but the emissions from fossil fuel production, agriculture and waste have overtaken them.
Agriculture is the largest source of methane, mostly from cows, which emit methane both through their burps and their manure, and rice, which emits methane when fields are flooded. The use of different systems of rice production, as well as a variety of proposed ways to stop cows emitting so much methane, are just some of the moves being made to tackle these. The more dispersed nature of agriculture means this will be a slow ship to turn.
Landfill gas can be captured and used to reduce air pollution. Banks says that by helping to direct international attention and money to the worst emitting sites, spotting large sites of methane release from space will be helpful.
The fossil fuel industry is the most likely to cut methane emissions in the short term, according to a study published last year. A full 50% of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector could be cut by the year 2030. According to the study, a quarter of global methane emissions could be reduced with cost-effective measures, which would bring the world close to the 30% target.
When natural gas is released into the atmosphere, methane is emitted in the oil and gas industry. There are three main sources of methane gas: intentional venting, incomplete flaring, and unintentional emissions from accidental leaks. Methane is released through coalmining as methane is often vented away to avoid explosions.
It is possible to plug leaks in the oil and gas industry with detection technology. The challenge is knowing where they are.
Efforts to cut emissions have been boosted by the methane pledge at Cop26 Some scientists and non-profit groups are ahead of the politicians on how to do this. The next step in methane detection is a new generation of satellites that will give a much deeper insight into the emissions of methane on the planet.
Over the next two to three years, you're going to see an expanding constellation of methane monitoring satellites that will give us a more expansive view. The satellites will give an unprecedented overview of where the methane is being emitted and help to guide operators and decision-makers in their efforts to reduce it.
MethaneSat is the first of these and will start delivering data in 2023. MethaneSat will have more precision than Tropomi. It will be able to capture leaks as low as 5 kilogrammes per hour per sq km, far below the 25 kilogrammes an hour that Tropomi can see.
It will give you information for how much emissions are coming from a certain area, so you can be aware of what your baseline emissions are. You could determine the source and fix it as soon as possible, instead of letting it leak continuously.
MethaneSat will be useful to better understand the methane coming from those parts of the world where it is harder to fly an aircraft carrying a sensor.
Carbon Mapper's satellites will be able to focus on individual methane sources with a spatial resolution of just 30 metres. Its ultimate goal is to provide daily to weekly monitoring of all of the high emitting regions around the planet and to make that methane data and CO 2 data publicly available. Carbon Mapper hopes to increase detection of oil and gas sector leaks with the help of 20 satellites.
Banks says that it's great that both satellites are going up together. He says that the MethaneSat will see a lot more of the planet. Carbon Mapper's satellites allow a zoom in view of specific sources. I believe they will change our perception of the problem.
It is possible for governments to hold individual companies responsible for emissions if we can detect emissions directly from the sites. She says that before, there was no way to monitor sites continuously.
There are other ways to detect methane emissions, such as using handheld optical gas cameras. Ann Stavert, a scientist at the Global Carbon Project at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, says that the networks will remain more sensitive to smaller emissions.
Understanding where the methane is coming from will become more and more important as global leaders narrow in on reducing methane for climate reasons.
Researchers have flagged another worrying source of methane. A study done in January this year found that gas stoves in 40m US homes release methane through incomplete combustion while cooking and via leaks when the stove is turned off.
Stavert says that a reduction in emissions is a good thing, but it is likely that gas stoves are only responsible for a small portion of the total. Electric cooking emits less CO 2 than burning gas, so it's still a good way to cut carbon.
A 2020 report found that tens of millions of Americans cooking with gas stoves are probably experiencing levels of indoor nitrogen dioxide pollution that would be illegal if outside.
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