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Geostationary satellite observations of extreme and transient methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure

Geostationary satellite observations of extreme and transient methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. The published version of this Preprint is available: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2310797120. This is version 3 of this Preprint.

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Authors

Marc Watine-Guiu, Daniel J. Varon , Itziar Irakulis-Loitxate , Nicholas Balasus, Daniel J. Jacob

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−1. 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.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31223/X5K661

Subjects

Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Keywords

methane, Geostationary, satellites, remote sensing

Dates

Published: 2023-06-27 13:35

Last Updated: 2025-06-29 20:37

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License

CC BY Attribution 4.0 International