21–30 of 387 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Methane is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere It's a pretty potent greenhouse gas. https://www.epa.gov/gmi/importance-methane
Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas compared to CO2, but also stays in the atmosphere much less long (on the order of a few decades).
> The instrument can look for methane in the same way. “It turns out that methane also has a spectral signature in the same wavelength range, and that’s what has allowed us to be sensitive to methane,” EMIT principal investigator Robert Green said at a press conference, according to Space.com’s Mike Wall. Lol "it turns out". Did they troll Congress and sell them a mineral detector? Of course they knew methane had a s…
Here's a highly-cited paper in Nature (including some of the researchers quoted in the OP) that describes how an earlier survey of California methane emissions went:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1720-3
If I remember right, the state of CA asked for this survey. It was carried out by an instrument similar to that of the OP, but airborne, not on ISS as in OP.
California has standards for methane emissions (e.g., https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/fact-sheets/oil-and-gas-met...) that are now covering landfills and oil and gas infrastructure, and dairies -- three of the largest categories of large emitters.
(One effect of these regulations, that lay people may have noticed, is trying to get food waste out of the landfill stream, and into composting, so that it doesn't decay anaerobically and produce methane. In LA, for example, the LADWP is test-driving a program where food scraps - vegetables, but also meats and fats - are diverted into green bins.)
Strengthened regulations on methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure are part of this - I'm not saying the studies motivated these regulations, just that they are all part of policies heading in that direction.
It is believed that large oil companies are aggressively selling off oil pumps/fields to get out from under this responsibility. (https://www.propublica.org/article/california-oil-wells-shel...)
The ISS measurements in OP have covered (and will continue to cover) a much broader area than the California airborne survey - but with less spatial resolution - so presumably a broad survey of mid-latitude super-emitters will be possible in the coming months.
> The instrument can look for methane in the same way. “It turns out that methane also has a spectral signature in the same wavelength range, and that’s what has allowed us to be sensitive to methane,” EMIT principal investigator Robert Green said at a press conference, according to Space.com’s Mike Wall. Lol "it turns out". Did they troll Congress and sell them a mineral detector? Of course they knew methane had a s…
How could a 2 mile long methane plume in New Mexico have been undetected for any significant amount of time? From what I understand basic environmental monitoring is done in 2022 around all major industrial facilities in the U.S.
Or simply „How come we are finding out about that now and not in last 20 years…”
Several questions ask to contextualize this measurement. Here's a highly-cited paper in Nature (including some of the researchers quoted in the OP) that describes how an earlier survey of California methane emissions went: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1720-3 If I remember right, the state of CA asked for this survey. It was carried out by an instrument similar to that of the OP, but airborne, not on ISS…
Will be interesting to see how this capability unfolds. They’ve proven this can be done using an instrument not even designed for the task. A specialized instrument may be able to detect other greenhouse emissions. Imagine the kind of high resolution accountability that might be possible. But does the political will exist in the US to expose ourselves that way? Our political donors that way? Our country as one of the…
It uses broadly the same technique as in OP -- spectroscopy to detect the absorption of sunlight from the presence of that particular chemical species. Because the above instrument was designed for the purpose, it's much more accurate and able to distinguish small variations in CO2, not "just" large plumes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas compared to CO2, but also stays in the atmosphere much less long (on the order of a few decades).
The way methane "exits" the atmosphere is by becoming CO2, so it's strictly worse.