The team behind the world's most advanced methane-monitoring satellite, MethaneSat, are keen on metaphors about cleaning. "About the size of a washing machine," was how environmental scientist Steven Wofsy, described the orbiting object at a press conference ahead of its launch. "Like a push-broom," was his phrase for its capacity to scan the surface of the Earth.
The metaphors are apt. Methane is a particularly dirty greenhouse gas, driving about 30% of the heating the planet has experienced so far. It breaks down in the atmosphere in just 12 years, which is much sooner than the centuries taken by CO2 – but it is also around 80 times more powerful over a 20-year time span...
With 60% of global methane emissions coming from human activities, reductions are essential to reaching the world's climate change targets. Equally, if not addressed in a timely way, it could contribute to the passing of dangerous tipping points that lead to rapid and irreversible change around the globe.
MethaneSat aims to help by providing an independent source of methane monitoring, with a primary focus on methane leaked from oil and gas fields – such as the recent, months-long mega leak in Kazakhstan, which resulted in the release of 127,000 tonnes of the potent gas. By supplementing existing satellite data with even more precise measurements, MethaneSat hopes to provide a near-comprehensive view of global leaks...more
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And of course, the primary focus is on ag
Yet the oil and gas industry is also far from the only source of human-caused methane emissions. Agriculture is in fact the largest human source of methane emissions, according to the International Energy Agency, at almost 40%. Energy is in second at around 37%, and waste in third.
Within agriculture, flooded rice fields account for 8% of total human-linked emissions, but belches and manure from livestock are the biggest contributors, with cattle the biggest single offenders. In California, the non-profit coalition Climate Trace found that one single cattle feedlot produced more methane than the state's biggest oil and gas fields.
According to Sara Mikaloff-Fletcher, a biogeochemical scientist at National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand, who is leading MethaneSat's agricultural research, that capacity will only increase in relation to agriculture too. The new satellite's ability to map methane at a precision of 2 ppb (parts per billion) means it will be the first satellite well suited to measuring agricultural emissions, she says. "That number might not mean a lot to your readers, but to me it is the same precision I could get from an instrument on the ground – which is extraordinary."
...Conversely, agriculture's methane output is more elusive. Aerial remote sensing measurements, such as those taken from aircraft or drones, can capture methane leaks, says Aaron Davitt, principal analyst on remote sensing for the non-profit WattTime, but these technologies can only be deployed in limited regions for limited amounts of time.
2 comments:
There are more 4 footed belchers and farters in Africa than the USA, so why isn't there a concern about that in the press? Go figure, it's all about politics and not about methane or some other green foolishness.
And not one mention of Stacey Abrahms
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