A discovery that threatens the Earth .. NASA monitors the sites of methane emission in huge quantities from the Earth

Weather of Arabia - In a scientific achievement that revealed sites that threaten the Earth's climate, a device belonging to the American space agency "NASA" by chance proved its ingenuity in an unplanned job, which is the detection of large emissions of methane gas in dozens of sites around the world, and methane is one of the most important gases strong cause of global warming.

NASA said Tuesday that the instrument, called the Imaging Spectrophotometer (EMIT), has identified more than 50 "super methane emitters" in Central Asia, the Middle East and the southwestern United States since it was installed in July aboard the International Space Station.

Super methane emitters, some of which have been detected recently and others already known, include large oil and gas facilities and large landfills.

How did the device detect methane?

The spectrophotometer was mainly built to determine the mineral composition of dust rising in the atmosphere from Earth's deserts and other arid regions by measuring the wavelengths of light reflected from the surface of the soil in those regions, as the study, which is called "the study of mineral dust of the Earth's surface", will help. Scientists are working to determine whether the airborne dust in different parts of the world is absorbing or deflecting the sun’s heat, thus contributing to the warming or cooling of the planet.

It turns out that methane absorbs infrared light in a unique pattern that EMIT's spectrometer can easily detect, according to scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) near Los Angeles, where the device was designed and built.

The EMIT instrument orbits the Earth once every 90 minutes aboard the space station, which is 420 km above the Earth's surface, and is able to survey large areas of the planet across dozens of miles while also focusing on small areas such as a football field.

Effect of methane on Earth

Methane, a by-product of decomposing organic matter and the main component of natural gas used in power plants, accounts for a small portion of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, but has the potential to trap 80 times more Earth's heat than carbon dioxide.

Compared to carbon dioxide, which stays in the atmosphere for centuries, methane only lasts for a decade, which means reductions in methane emissions have more of an impact on global warming.

The most important "methane emitters" that have been observed

An example of newly photographed super-emissions of methane shown by JPL on Tuesday is a cluster of 12 plumes from Turkmenistan's oil and gas infrastructure, some of which extend for more than 20 miles (32 km).

Scientists estimate that Turkmenistan's plumes are collectively emitting methane at a rate of 111,000 pounds (50,400 kilograms) per hour, rivaling the peak flow from the 2015 Aliso Canyon gas field explosion near Los Angeles that ranks as one of the largest emitters of methane in US history.

Two other major emitters, an oil field in New Mexico and a waste treatment complex in Iran, emit approximately 60,000 pounds (29,000 kilograms) of methane per hour. JPL officials said neither was previously known to scientists.

(Photograph of a methane plume (4.8 km) rising from a major landfill, where methane is a by-product of decomposition, south of Tehran, Iran. This image is from October 25, 2022. Google Earth/NASA/via Reuters)

NASA said EMIT, one of 25 Earth science instruments in orbit, could find hundreds of sites of super methane emitters before its year-long mission ends.

Reuters