Daniel Varon: Continuous monitoring of methane emissions from space
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Abstract
High-frequency satellite observations of atmospheric methane can enable continuous monitoring of methane emissions to improve understanding of emission trends, track progress of mitigation efforts, and reveal new opportunities to cut emissions. We present an inverse modeling framework for weekly continuous monitoring of methane emissions at ~25-km resolution in user-selected source regions using TROPOMI satellite observations and the open-access Integrated Methane Inversion cloud-computing facility (IMI v2.0). We apply this framework to quantify weekly methane emissions from five high-emitting US oil and gas basins (Anadarko, Barnett, Eagle Ford, Haynesville, Permian) for 2022–2023, and verify our inversion results with independent in-situ observations and flux analyses. We further monitor the weekly national total methane emission from Turkmenistan for 2020–2023 to evaluate trends.
Bio
Daniel Varon is a research associate studying atmospheric composition at Harvard University. He received his PhD in atmospheric chemistry from Harvard in 2020 and held a visiting postdoctoral fellowship at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs from 2021 to 2023. His research revolves around satellite remote sensing of atmospheric composition and its potential to help mitigate human impacts on the atmosphere.