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Mahesh

06/03/24 10:30 AM IST

MethaneSAT, a satellite which will ‘name and shame’ methane emitters

In News
  • MethaneSAT — a satellite which will track and measure methane emissions at a global scale — was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon9 rocket from California recently.
Methane emissions
  • Methane is an invisible but strong greenhouse gas, and the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide, responsible for 30 per cent of global heating since the Industrial Revolution.
  • According to the United Nations Environment Programme, over a period of 20 years, methane is 80 times more potent at warming than carbon dioxide.
  • The gas also contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone — a colourless and highly irritating gas that forms just above the Earth’s surface.
  • According to a 2022 report, exposure to ground-level ozone could be contributing to one million premature deaths every year.
  • Therefore, it is crucial to cut methane emissions. And the main culprit: fossil fuel operations, which account for about 40 per cent of all human-caused methane emissions. The objective of MethaneSAT is to help achieve this goal.
MethaneSAT
  • The entity behind MethaneSAT is the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) — a US-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group.
  • To develop the satellite, EDF partnered with Harvard University, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and the New Zealand Space Agency.
  • Essentially, MethaneSAT will orbit the Earth 15 times a day, monitoring the oil and gas sector.
  • It will create a large amount of data, which will tell “how much methane is coming from where, who’s responsible, and are those emissions going up or down over time”.
  • The data collected by MethaneSAT will be made public for free in near real-time.
  • This will allow stakeholders and regulators to take action to reduce methane emissions.
Features of the Satellite
  • Equipped with a high-resolution infrared sensor and a spectrometer, the satellite will fill critical data gaps.
  • It can track differences in methane concentrations as small as three parts per billion in the atmosphere, which enables it to pick up smaller emissions sources than the previous satellites.
  • MethaneSAT also has a wide-camera view — of about 200 km by 200 km — allowing it to identify larger emitters so-called “super emitters”.
  • The collected data will be analysed using cloud-computing and AI technology developed by Google — the company is a mission partner — and the data will be made public through Google’s Earth Engine platform.
Significance
  • The launch of MethaneSAT has come at a moment when the world is implementing more stringent methane management policies.
  • For instance, more than 150 countries signed the Global Methane Pledge in 2021, to cut their collective methane emissions by at least 30 per cent from 2020 levels by 2030.
  • At last year’s COP, more than 50 companies committed to virtually eliminating methane emissions and routine flaring.
  • MethaneSAT will help them meet these targets.
  • The satellite will also usher in a new era of transparency.
  • Its publicly available data, which can be accessed by anyone in the world, will keep track of methane commitments made by governments and corporations.
Source- Indian Express

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