Comparing satellite methane measurements to inventory estimates: A Canadian case study. (January 2023) - Dubey, Luke
Abstract: Methane emissions from natural gas production are of increasing importance as they threaten efforts to mitigate climate change. Current inventory estimates carry high uncertainties due to difficulties in measuring emission sources across large regions. Satellite measurements of atmospheric methane could provide new understanding of emissions. This paper provides insight into the effectiveness of using satellite data to inform and improve methane inventories for natural gas activities. TROPOMI data are used to quantify methane emissions from natural gas within the Montney basin region of Canada and results are compared with existing inventories. Emissions estimated using TROPOMI data were 2.6 ± 2.2 kt/day which is 7.4 ± 6.4 times the inventory estimates. Pixels (7 by 7 km) that contained gas facilities had on average 11 ppb more methane than the background. 7.4% of pixels containing gas sites displayed consistently high methane levels that were not reflected in the inventory. The satellite data were not sufficiently granular to correlate with inventories on a facility scale. This illustrates the spatial limitations of using satellite data to corroborate bottom-up inventories. Graphical abstract: Image 1 Highlights: TROPOMI estimated 7.4 ± 6.4 times the methane reported in the Canadian inventory. The optimal resolution for corroboration was at a pixel length of 21 km. 7.4% of pixels containing gas sites were responsible for large, consistent emissions. These high emitting regions were not captured by the inventory.