Articles | Volume 11, issue 10
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5673-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-5673-2018
Research article
 | 
18 Oct 2018
Research article |  | 18 Oct 2018

Quantifying methane point sources from fine-scale satellite observations of atmospheric methane plumes

Daniel J. Varon, Daniel J. Jacob, Jason McKeever, Dylan Jervis, Berke O. A. Durak, Yan Xia, and Yi Huang

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Short summary
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas emitted from numerous human activities. Space-based observation of point sources would be a cost-effective monitoring solution, but the resolution of most current and planned methane-observing satellites is too coarse to resolve individual emitters. We simulate fine-resolution (50 m) satellite observations of methane plumes as would be measured by GHGSat (to be launched in 2019) and show that such data can usefully quantify large methane point sources.
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