Geostationary satellite observations of extreme and transient methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure.
other
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38113260.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1073/pnas.2310797120 and PMC identifier 10756283.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
We demonstrate geostationary satellite monitoring of large transient methane point sources with the US Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES). GOES provides continuous 5- to 10-min coverage of the Americas at 1 to 2 km nadir pixel resolution in two shortwave infrared spectral bands from which large methane plumes can be retrieved. We track the full evolution of an extreme methane release from the El Encino-La Laguna natural gas pipeline in Durango, Mexico on 12 May 2019. The release lasted 3 h at a variable rate of 260 to 550 metric tons of methane per hour and totaled 1,130 to 1,380 metric tons. We report several other detections of transient point sources from oil/gas infrastructure, from which we infer a detection limit of 10 to 100 t h<sup>-1</sup>. Our results show that extreme releases of methane can last less than an hour, as from deliberate venting, and would thus be difficult to identify and quantify with low-Earth orbit satellites.