Some quick info I took from one websearch on methane mapping. Image Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3228/methane-super-emitters-mapped-by-nasas-new-earth-space-mission/
“Reining in methane emissions is key to limiting global warming. This exciting new development will not only help researchers better pinpoint where methane leaks are coming from, but also provide insight on how they can be addressed - quickly,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“The International Space Station and NASA’s more than two dozen satellites and instruments in space have long been invaluable in determining changes to the Earth’s climate. EMIT is proving to be a critical tool in our toolbox to measure this potent greenhouse gas - and stop it at the source.”
The new observations stem from the broad coverage of the planet afforded by the space station’s orbit, as well as from EMIT’s ability to scan swaths of Earth’s surface dozens of miles wide while resolving areas as small as a soccer field.
“These results are exceptional, and they demonstrate the value of pairing global-scale perspective with the resolution required to identify methane point sources, down to the facility scale,” said David Thompson, EMIT’s instrument scientist and a senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission.
“Some of the plumes EMIT detected are among the largest ever seen - unlike anything that has ever been observed from space,” said Andrew Thorpe, a research technologist at JPL leading the EMIT methane effort.
“As it continues to survey the planet, EMIT will observe places in which no one thought to look for greenhouse-gas emitters before, and it will find plumes that no one expects,” said Robert Green, EMIT’s principal investigator at JPL. EMIT is the first of a new class of spaceborne imaging spectrometers to study Earth.
EMIT was selected from the Earth Venture Instrument-4 solicitation under the Earth Science Division of NASA Science Mission Directorate and was developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California.
Also worth noting, as the instrument is on the ISS, it’s ground coverage will be limited to ±53 degrees or so. Much of my birth province of Alberta in Canada will escape scrutiny from this, including the oil sands projects. Hopefully a successor to this ends up in a polar orbiting mission.
