ABI shows promise for methane monitoring

Update: The study on geostationary monitoring of large methane sources was published in December in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. An earlier version of this article linked to a preprint.
BALTIMORE – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) constellation could provide valuable data on methane emissions.
With imagery from the GOES Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), researchers identified a large natural gas pipeline release and quantified total emissions. By comparing imagery captured every five minutes, the researchers showed how emissions changed over time and determined the duration of the leak.
NOAA has not yet tested the algorithm, but “the potential for this technique is enormous,” Shobha Kondragunta, Aerosols and Atmospheric Composition science team lead at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Satellite and Information Service, said Jan. 21 in a SpaceNews ...

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