Technological Maturity of Aircraft-Based Methane Sensing for Greenhouse Gas Mitigation

Environ Sci Technol. 2024 Jun 4;58(22):9591-9600. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.4c02439. Epub 2024 May 17.

Abstract

Methane is a major contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Identifying large sources of methane, particularly from the oil and gas sectors, will be essential for mitigating climate change. Aircraft-based methane sensing platforms can rapidly detect and quantify methane point-source emissions across large geographic regions, and play an increasingly important role in industrial methane management and greenhouse gas inventory. We independently evaluate the performance of five major methane-sensing aircraft platforms: Carbon Mapper, GHGSat-AV, Insight M, MethaneAIR, and Scientific Aviation. Over a 6 week period, we released metered gas for over 700 single-blind measurements across all five platforms to evaluate their ability to detect and quantify emissions that range from 1 to over 1,500 kg(CH4)/h. Aircraft consistently quantified releases above 10 kg(CH4)/h, and GHGSat-AV and Insight M detected emissions below 5 kg(CH4)/h. Fully blinded quantification estimates for platforms using downward-facing imaging spectrometers have parity slopes ranging from 0.76 to 1.13, with R2 values of 0.61 to 0.93; the platform using continuous air sampling has a parity slope of 0.5 (R2 = 0.93). Results demonstrate that aircraft-based methane sensing has matured since previous studies and is ready for an increasingly important role in environmental policy and regulation.

Keywords: climate change; controlled release; energy; methane; oil and gas; remote sensing.

MeSH terms

  • Air Pollutants / analysis
  • Aircraft*
  • Climate Change
  • Environmental Monitoring / methods
  • Greenhouse Gases* / analysis
  • Methane* / analysis

Substances

  • Methane
  • Greenhouse Gases
  • Air Pollutants