Articles | Volume 23, issue 13
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-7503-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-7503-2023
Research article
 | Highlight paper
 | 
11 Jul 2023
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 11 Jul 2023

Continuous weekly monitoring of methane emissions from the Permian Basin by inversion of TROPOMI satellite observations

Daniel J. Varon, Daniel J. Jacob, Benjamin Hmiel, Ritesh Gautam, David R. Lyon, Mark Omara, Melissa Sulprizio, Lu Shen, Drew Pendergrass, Hannah Nesser, Zhen Qu, Zachary R. Barkley, Natasha L. Miles, Scott J. Richardson, Kenneth J. Davis, Sudhanshu Pandey, Xiao Lu, Alba Lorente, Tobias Borsdorff, Joannes D. Maasakkers, and Ilse Aben

Related authors

Satellite quantification of methane emissions from South American countries: A high-resolution inversion of TROPOMI and GOSAT observations
Sarah E. Hancock, Daniel Jacob, Zichong Chen, Hannah Nesser, Aaron Davitt, Daniel J. Varon, Melissa P. Sulprizio, Nicholas Balasus, Lucas A. Estrada, James D. East, Elise Penn, Cynthia A. Randles, John Worden, Ilse Aben, Robert J. Parker, and Joannes D. Maasakkers
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1763,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1763, 2024
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Assessing methane emissions from collapsing Venezuelan oil production using TROPOMI
Brian Nathan, Joannes D. Maasakkers, Stijn Naus, Ritesh Gautam, Mark Omara, Daniel J. Varon, Melissa P. Sulprizio, Lucas A. Estrada, Alba Lorente, Tobias Borsdorff, Robert J. Parker, and Ilse Aben
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 6845–6863, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6845-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6845-2024, 2024
Short summary
Report on Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2B observations of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline methane leak
Matthieu Dogniaux, Joannes D. Maasakkers, Daniel J. Varon, and Ilse Aben
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 2777–2787, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-2777-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-2777-2024, 2024
Short summary
U-Plume: automated algorithm for plume detection and source quantification by satellite point-source imagers
Jack H. Bruno, Dylan Jervis, Daniel J. Varon, and Daniel J. Jacob
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 17, 2625–2636, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-2625-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-2625-2024, 2024
Short summary
Automated detection and monitoring of methane super-emitters using satellite data
Berend J. Schuit, Joannes D. Maasakkers, Pieter Bijl, Gourav Mahapatra, Anne-Wil van den Berg, Sudhanshu Pandey, Alba Lorente, Tobias Borsdorff, Sander Houweling, Daniel J. Varon, Jason McKeever, Dylan Jervis, Marianne Girard, Itziar Irakulis-Loitxate, Javier Gorroño, Luis Guanter, Daniel H. Cusworth, and Ilse Aben
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 9071–9098, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9071-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-9071-2023, 2023
Short summary

Related subject area

Subject: Gases | Research Activity: Atmospheric Modelling and Data Analysis | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Chemistry (chemical composition and reactions)
Why did ozone concentrations remain high during Shanghai's static management? A statistical and radical-chemistry perspective
Jian Zhu, Shanshan Wang, Chuanqi Gu, Zhiwen Jiang, Sanbao Zhang, Ruibin Xue, Yuhao Yan, and Bin Zhou
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8383–8395, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8383-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8383-2024, 2024
Short summary
Revising VOC emissions speciation improves the simulation of global background ethane and propane
Matthew J. Rowlinson, Mat J. Evans, Lucy J. Carpenter, Katie A. Read, Shalini Punjabi, Adedayo Adedeji, Luke Fakes, Ally Lewis, Ben Richmond, Neil Passant, Tim Murrells, Barron Henderson, Kelvin H. Bates, and Detlev Helmig
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8317–8342, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8317-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8317-2024, 2024
Short summary
Changes in South American surface ozone trends: exploring the influences of precursors and extreme events
Rodrigo J. Seguel, Lucas Castillo, Charlie Opazo, Néstor Y. Rojas, Thiago Nogueira, María Cazorla, Mario Gavidia-Calderón, Laura Gallardo, René Garreaud, Tomás Carrasco-Escaff, and Yasin Elshorbany
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8225–8242, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8225-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8225-2024, 2024
Short summary
Evaluating NOx stack plume emissions using a high-resolution atmospheric chemistry model and satellite-derived NO2 columns
Maarten Krol, Bart van Stratum, Isidora Anglou, and Klaas Folkert Boersma
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8243–8262, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8243-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8243-2024, 2024
Short summary
NOx emissions in France in 2019–2021 as estimated by the high-spatial-resolution assimilation of TROPOMI NO2 observations
Robin Plauchu, Audrey Fortems-Cheiney, Grégoire Broquet, Isabelle Pison, Antoine Berchet, Elise Potier, Gaëlle Dufour, Adriana Coman, Dilek Savas, Guillaume Siour, and Henk Eskes
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 8139–8163, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8139-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8139-2024, 2024
Short summary

Cited articles

Allen, D. T., Cardoso-Saldaña, F. J., Kimura, Y., Chen, Q., Xiang, Z., Zimmerle, D., Bell, C., Lute, C., Duggan, J., and Harrison, M.: A Methane Emission Estimation Tool (MEET) for predictions of emissions from upstream oil and gas well sites with fine scale temporal and spatial resolution: Model structure and applications, Sci. Total Environ., 829, 154277, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.154277, 2022. 
Barkley, Z., Davis, K., Miles, N., Richardson, S., Deng, A., Hmiel, B., Lyon, D., and Lauvaux, T.: Quantification of oil and gas methane emissions in the Delaware and Marcellus basins using a network of continuous tower-based measurements, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 6127–6144, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-6127-2023, 2023. 
Bloom, A. A., Bowman, K. W., Lee, M., Turner, A. J., Schroeder, R., Worden, J. R., Weidner, R., McDonald, K. C., and Jacob, D. J.: A global wetland methane emissions and uncertainty dataset for atmospheric chemical transport models (WetCHARTs version 1.0), Geosci. Model Dev., 10, 2141–2156, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-10-2141-2017, 2017. 
Brasseur, G. P. and Jacob, D. J.: Modeling of Atmospheric Chemistry, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, ISBN 9781316544754, 2017. 
Download
Executive editor
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential much greater than carbon dioxide. In order to understand and limit its global warming effect, it is important to have have observation systems to estimate its anthropogenic emissions. This paper analyses in a novel way TROPOMI satellite observations to track methane emissions from the largest oil production basin in the United States over a 2-year period. The analysis shows that emission variability and trends are driven by multiple factors, among which new well development and natural gas spot price are the most significant ones. The work is an excellent demonstration of the potential of satellite observations for near-real-time monitoring of methane emissions. It opens a broad range of applications, helping science and policy to understand and mitigate climate change.
Short summary
We use TROPOMI satellite observations to quantify weekly methane emissions from the US Permian oil and gas basin from May 2018 to October 2020. We find that Permian emissions are highly variable, with diverse economic and activity drivers. The most important drivers during our study period were new well development and natural gas price. Permian methane intensity averaged 4.6 % and decreased by 1 % per year.
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint