Quantifying Time-Averaged Methane Emissions from Individual Coal Mine Vents with GHGSat-D Satellite Observations

Abstract

Satellite observations of atmospheric methane plumes offer a means for global mapping of methane point sources. Here we use the GHGSat-D satellite instrument with 50 m effective spatial resolution and 9-18% single-pass column precision to quantify mean source rates for three coal mine vents (San Juan, United States; Appin, Australia; and Bulianta, China) over a two-year period (2016-2018). This involves averaging wind-rotated observations from 14 to 24 overpasses to achieve satisfactory signal-to-noise. Our wind rotation method optimizes the wind direction information for individual plumes to account for error in meteorological databases. We derive source rates from the time-averaged plumes using integrated mass enhancement (IME) and cross-sectional flux (CSF) methods calibrated with large eddy simulations. We find time-averaged source rates ranging from 2320 to 5850 kg h-1 for the three coal mine vents, with 40-45% precision (1σ), and generally consistent with previous estimates. The IME and CSF methods agree within 15%. Our results demonstrate the potential of space-based monitoring for annual reporting of methane emissions from point sources and suggest that future satellite instruments with similar pixel resolution but better precision should be able to constrain a wide range of point sources.