An orbital NASA instrument designed mainly to advance studies of airborne dust has proven adept at another key Earth-science function — detecting large, worldwide emissions of methane.
The device, called an imaging spectrometer, has identified more than 50 methane “super-emitters” in Central Asia, the Middle East and the southwestern US since it was installed in July aboard the International Space Station, NASA said on Tuesday.
The newly measured methane hotspots — some previously known and others just discovered — include sprawling oil and gas facilities and large landfills.
Photo: AFP / NASA / JPL-Caltech
The spectrometer was built primarily to identify the mineral composition of dust blown into the atmosphere from Earth’s deserts and other arid regions by measuring the wavelengths of light reflected from the surface soil in those areas.
That study, NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Investigation, or EMIT, is to help scientists determine whether airborne dust in different parts of the world is likely to trap or deflect heat from the sun, thus contributing to warming or cooling of the planet.
It turns out that methane absorbs infrared light in a unique pattern that EMIT’s spectrometer can easily detect, according said scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles, where the instrument was designed and built.
Circling Earth once every 90 minutes from its perch aboard the space station about 420km high, EMIT is able to scan vast tracts of the planet dozens of kilometers across while also focusing in on areas as small as a soccer field.
A byproduct of decomposing organic material and the chief component of natural gas used in power plants, methane accounts for a fraction of all human-caused greenhouse emissions, but has about 80 more heat-trapping capacity pound-for-pound than carbon dioxide.
Compared with carbon dioxide, which lingers in the atmosphere for centuries, methane persists for only about a decade, meaning that reductions in methane emissions have a more immediate impact on planetary warming.
Examples of newly imaged methane super-emitters showcased by JPL on Tuesday included a cluster of 12 plumes from oil and gas infrastructure in Turkmenistan, some plumes stretching more than 32km.
Scientists estimate the Turkmenistan plumes collectively spew methane at a rate of 50,400kg per hour, rivaling the peak flow from the 2015 Aliso Canyon gas field blowout near Los Angeles that ranks as one of the largest accidental methane releases in US history.
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