NASA-Built Instrument Will Help to Spot Greenhouse Gas Super-Emitters

[truthfollower]

Apr 15, 2021



NASA-Built Instrument Will Help to Spot Greenhouse Gas Super-Emitters


Data collected with the Global Airborne Observatory over the Permian Basin in 2019, a joint campaign with NASA’s AVIRIS-NG.
Credits: Carbon Mapper, U. Arizona/Arizona State University/NASA/JPL-Caltech

The tool will help people, including resource managers and other officials, to address increasing concentrations of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California is providing the instrument that will enable a nonprofit organization called Carbon Mapper to pinpoint and measure methane and carbon dioxide (CO2) point-sources from space. The data collected by the instrument will help to find super-emitters – the small percentage of individual sources that are responsible for a significant fraction of global emissions of methane and carbon dioxide.

“JPL is excited to be pioneering this research effort, which will provide critical information about greenhouse gases and the future of Earth’s climate,” said James Graf, director for the Earth Science and Technology Directorate at JPL. “This effort is the first time we have partnered on a space mission with a consortium of nonprofit organizations, universities, and the State of California.”


A methane plume detected by NASA’s AVIRIS-NG in summer 2020 indicates a leaking gas line in oil field in California. The operator subsequently confirmed and repaired the leak.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The first Carbon Mapper satellite is targeting a 2023 launch. JPL will provide a state-of-the-art imaging spectrometer, a type of instrument used widely in scientific research. Where a digital photograph breaks down visible light into just three colors – red, green, and blue – an imaging spectrometer breaks down light into hundreds of colors to reveal the unique spectral signatures of molecules such as methane and carbon dioxide in the air.

JPL has been developing imaging spectrometers since the 1980s for NASA, and its instruments have unmatched performance. In the last few years, the laboratory has used these imagers deployed on airplanes to measure atmospheric gases, including methane in California and the Four Corners region of the U.S. JPL imaging spectrometers will also be aboard upcoming missions to the Moon and Jupiter’s moon Europa.

The Carbon Mapper’s Earth-orbiting imaging spectrometer will have a pixel size of about 30 meters (98 feet) square. Other imaging spectrometers currently in orbit have larger pixel sizes, making it hard to pinpoint the locations of sources that may not be visible on the ground, such as cracks in natural gas pipelines. “With such high-resolution images, there is no question where greenhouse gas plumes originate. This technology enables researchers to identify, study, and quantify the strong gas emission sources,” said JPL scientist Charles Miller, who has spent decades studying methane around the world.

JPL’s research in methane quantification from spectroscopy, funded by NASA’s Earth science division, is also helping Carbon Mapper to address a second challenge: making its data on emissions accessible to all interested users in industry, government, and the private sector. Carbon Mapper will have an open data portal making its findings available quickly and continuously, speeding disaster responses and the repair of faulty industrial equipment.

“This decade represents an all-hands-on-deck moment for humanity to make critical progress in addressing climate change,” said Riley Duren, Carbon Mapper’s chief executive officer and a research scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “Our mission is to help fill gaps in the emerging global ecosystem of methane and CO2 monitoring systems by delivering data that are timely, actionable and accessible for science-based decision making.”

NASA’s Earth science division pioneers technological innovations that propel observations and scientific understanding of the changing Earth system. Besides JPL, other Carbon Mapper partners are the State of California, Planet, the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, High Tide Foundation, and RMI. For more information on Carbon Mapper, its satellites, and its partners, visit:

http://www.carbonmapper.org/​

NASA-Built Instrument Will Help to Spot Greenhouse Gas Super-Emitters - NASA

The tool will help people, including resource managers and other officials, to address increasing concentrations of methane and carbon dioxide in the

www.nasa.gov

 

[mari2121]

NASA is teaming up with an innovative non-profit to hunt for greenhouse gas super-emitters responsible for the climate crisis.

Super-emitters are individual sources such as leaking pipelines, landfills or dairy farms that produce a disproportionate amount of planet-warming emissions, especially methane and carbon dioxide. Carbon Mapper, the non-profit leading the effort, hopes to provide a more targeted guide to reducing emissions by launching special satellites that hunt for sources of climate pollution.

"What we've learned is that decision support systems that focus just at the level of nation states, or countries, are necessary but not sufficient. We really need to get down to the scale of individual facilities, and even individual pieces of equipment, if we're going to have an impact across civil society," Riley Duren, Carbon Mapper CEO and University of Arizona researcher, told BBC News. "Super-emitters are often intermittent but they are also disproportionately responsible for the total emissions. That suggests low-hanging fruit, because if you can identify and fix them you can get a big bang for your buck."

The new project, announced Thursday, is a partnership between multiple entities, including Carbon Mapper, the state of California, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Planet, a company that designs, builds and launches satellites, according to a press release. The project is being implemented in three stages.

The initial stage, which is already complete, involved the initial engineering development. NASA and Planet will work together in the second stage to build two satellites for a 2023 launch. The third phase will launch an entire constellation of satellites starting in 2025.