Using satellites to uncover large methane emissions from landfills.

ABSTRACT: As atmospheric methane concentrations increase at record pace, it is critical to identify individual emission sources with high potential for mitigation. Here, we leverage the synergy between satellite instruments with different spatiotemporal coverage and resolution to detect and quantify emissions from individual landfills. We use the global surveying Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) to identify large emission hot spots and then zoom in with high-resolution target-mode observations from the GHGSat instrument suite to identify the responsible facilities and characterize their emissions. Using this approach, we detect and analyze strongly emitting landfills (3 to 29 t hour^-1) in Buenos Aires, Delhi, Lahore, and Mumbai. Using TROPOMI data in an inversion, we find that

SUBMITTER: Maasakkers JD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9365275 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature