NASA satellites identify more than 50 methane 'super emitters'

Oct. 26 (UPI) -- NASA said its observational instruments have identified more than 50 so-called super emitters of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, on Earth.

The U.S. space agency's Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation, dubbed EMIT, is installed on the International Space Station. Using data collected since July, NASA scientists have uncovered several significant methane plumes across Central Asia, the Middle East and the southwestern United States.

"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," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. "EMIT is proving to be a critical tool in our toolbox to measure this potent greenhouse gas."

Methane emissions emerged as a geopolitical concern most recently when ruptures along Russia's Nord Stream natural gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea caused the gas to bubble up, creating a half-mile disturbance on the sea floor.

A gas facility at Aliso Canyon, near Los Angeles, leaked methane from late October 2015 to early 2016 following a blowout of a faulty well in what area officials said was the largest gas leak in U.S. history.

EMIT, meanwhile, detected a 3-mile-long plume of methane spewing from an Iranian landfill. That's emitting the loose equivalent of 18,700 pounds of methane an hour. Oil and gas infrastructure in Turkmenistan, meanwhile, is emitting a plume of methane that stretches some 20 miles long and is releasing about 111,000 pounds of methane an hour. That's about as severe as the Aliso Canyon leak.

In the United States, NASA detected a 2-mile plume stretching across New Mexico that's the result of exploration and production activity in the Permian basin, the largest inland source of crude oil in the country.

Environmental activists say the oil and gas industry is among the largest emitters of methane in the world. Methane accounts for only a fraction of total human-related greenhouse gas emissions, though it has a warming potential that far exceeds that of carbon dioxide.

NASA said EMIT is just one example of how its space-imaging technology can track problems on Earth. Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are working on carbon-mapping technology that could be put into space next year.

"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," Robert Green, EMIT's principal investigator at the JPL, said.