Articles | Volume 18, issue 23
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-16885-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-16885-2018
Research article
 | 
29 Nov 2018
Research article |  | 29 Nov 2018

Detecting high-emitting methane sources in oil/gas fields using satellite observations

Daniel H. Cusworth, Daniel J. Jacob, Jian-Xiong Sheng, Joshua Benmergui, Alexander J. Turner, Jeremy Brandman, Laurent White, and Cynthia A. Randles

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Cited articles

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Short summary
Methane emissions from oil/gas fields originate from a large number of small and densely clustered point sources. We examine the potential of recently launched or planned satellites to locate these high-mode emitters through measurements of atmospheric methane. We find that the recently launched TROPOMI and the planned GeoCARB instruments are successful at locating high-emitting sources for fields of 20-50 emitters within the 50 × 50 km2 geographic domain but are unsuccessful for denser fields.
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