Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
AMT
Articles | Volume 18, issue 23
Articles | Volume 18, issue 23
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-7153-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-18-7153-2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 18, issue 23
Research article
 | Highlight paper
 | 
02 Dec 2025
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 02 Dec 2025

A helicopter-based mass balance approach for quantifying methane emissions from industrial activities, applied for coal mine ventilation shafts in Poland

Eric Förster, Heidi Huntrieser, Michael Lichtenstern, Falk Pätzold, Lutz Bretschneider, Andreas Schlerf, Sven Bollmann, Astrid Lampert, Jarosław Nęcki, Paweł Jagoda, Justyna Swolkień, Dominika Pasternak, Robert A. Field, and Anke Roiger

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Executive editor
This work introduces a new measurement platform and approach for quantifying methane emissions, which can compliment existing UAV and aircraft measurements. With growing global attention on methane reduction, there is a need to develop, test, and deploy multiple technologies that can both quantify emissions and validate bottom-up inventory estimates. Airborne surveys play a vital role in this toolkit, and the helicopter payload described in this study offers a method that is more flexible and agile than light aircraft.
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Short summary
We introduce a helicopter-borne mass balance approach, utilizing the HELiPOD platform, to accurately quantify methane (CH4) emissions from coal mining activities. The comparison of our top-down mass flux estimates (up to 3000 kg h−1) against those from bottom-up in-mine CH4 safety sensors revealed very good agreement. This approach also has a great potential in quantifying emission source strengths (down to 20 kg h−1) from a wide range of other CH4 emitters (e.g. landfills, oil & gas industry).
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