2023-09-26 18:23:48
Dutch researchers can better detect methane leaks with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). Closing those leaks helps in the fight against climate change.
Until now, KNMI and SRON, the Dutch space research institute, among others, have made pictures of methane emissions on Earth using a measuring instrument attached to a satellite, called Tropomi. This maps the lowest layer of our atmosphere (troposphere) every day. Researchers could then read from the maps where a lot of methane is emitted. It was a laborious task, because every pixel of the map had to be read, with a pixel being approximately 5 by 5 kilometers on the Earth’s surface.
But since January, the researchers have been getting help from artificial intelligence. This reads the maps and provides an overview of where the most methane is released. “Tropomi measures a few million places where methane is emitted every day. If you have to manually search for the hotspots, it is impossible to keep up,” says Ilse Aben of SRON. “We are now verifying the weekly data that AI collects with two researchers. That usually takes less than an hour.”
This more efficient search for methane emissions is important for the climate, because methane plays a major role in global warming. This is due to methane’s strong ability to trap heat radiation that would normally disappear into space. As a greenhouse gas, methane is about 34 times more potent than CO₂ and is responsible for about 20 percent of the greenhouse effect. It also retains thirty times more heat. And yet methane disappears from the atmosphere much faster than CO₂, after about ten years.
A lot of methane gas is released in livestock farming, where the gas is formed during digestion in the stomachs of cows. That goes into the air from both ‘ass and mouth’. Other methane emitters are: production and use of fossil fuels, rice cultivation and waste processing. But also in swamps, because the gas is released by rotting organic material such as leaves.
Low hanging fruit
Tropomi can view methane emissions all over the Earth, but it does not get more accurate than a surface of 5 by 5 kilometers. That is why the Canadian GHGSatellite is now being called in for help: it can zoom in with an accuracy of 25 meters, but only in an area of 10 by 15 kilometers each time. Tropomi makes it clear where the GHGSat can best search. “We collect data and GHGSat detects the methane leak. It is a golden combination,” says Aben.
This new way of working has led to the discovery of new ‘methane hotspots’. “On the one hand, that is good news, because the system works,” says Aben. “On the other hand, it means that a lot of methane appears to be emitted in previously unknown places.” Because, according to Aben, many of these methane emissions can be reduced relatively easily, such as by closing a gas leak, ‘low-hanging fruit’ is being picked in the fight against climate change.
Tropomi, an invention that cost almost 80 million euros, already mapped about a hundred of the most methane-emitting garbage dumps in the world before the help of AI. Garbage dumps are responsible for 18 percent of the world’s methane emissions. With AI, more of these types of sources can be spotted that were previously overlooked.
The maps also made it clear that an enormous amount of methane is leaking from oil and gas installations in Turkmenistan, among others. These leaks have the warming effect of 2.5 times the annual CO2emissions from the Netherlands.
Also read:
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Old Turkmen oil and gas pipelines leak enormous amounts of greenhouse gases
Oil and gas installations worldwide leak a huge amount of methane, while the solution is easy and cheap. MPs want the Netherlands to intervene, especially in Turkmenistan.
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