In the years interest and attention towards the production of greenhouse gases has increased significantly. Their increase in the atmosphere leads to a temperature increase as these gases are capable of intercepting infrared radiation re-emitted from the earth’s surface causing the so-called greenhouse effect: an accumulation within the very atmosphere of a part of thermal energy.
Few know about this very powerful greenhouse gas, and its concentration in the atmosphere continues to increase
They are present in our atmosphere various greenhouse gasesthe best known, as well as the more abundant (if we do not consider water vapor) is the carbon dioxideHowever it’s not the most effective in the mechanism of interception and re-emission of infrared radiation.
Methane, the most powerful greenhouse gas
The most effective in this is the methanea “super polluting”. Imagine if we had a ton of carbon dioxide and a ton of methane the latter would be capable of cause 30 times greater warming. He is actually responsible for about a third of global warming caused by all greenhouse gases.
Precisely because of its incredible power United States they signed the Global Methane Pledgean agreement with the aim of reduce global emissions by 30% compared to those of 2020 by 2030.
The record increase in CO2 levels in the global atmosphere is raising alarm among the scientific community
The evaluations regarding man-made methane emissions in the USA they are carried out byEnvironmental Protection Agency of the United States (EPA). This agency carries out an inventory of sources that produce and release methane known to date, i.e landfills, farms, oil and gas facilities and reports the emissions.
However a group of international researchers combined the observations of TROPOMES (Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument), an instrument on board the satellite Sentinel-5 Precursorwith the atmospheric transport model GEOS-Chem to generate a high resolution map of total US methane emissions in 2019.
In this way scientists discovered that in reality the emissions estimated so far by the EPA were lower of those that actually occurred.
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In general, satellite-derived methane emissions appear to be 13% higher compared to those of the EPA.
Previous estimates were too low
Going into more detail, according to the estimates based on satellite and modeling dataoil and gas facilities and factory farms, i.e the two largest sources of methane in the USA, they issued respectively 12% and 11% more compared to the EPA inventory.
There third largest source of methane, i.e landfillsthey even issued 50% more than previously estimated. To obtain this result the group of researchers examined 70 landfills located in the US territory, correlating their results with the aerial observationsuseful for refining satellite estimates of greenhouse gases especially when landfills sthey are located close to other sources of methane.
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These results are very importantnot only because they open our eyes and they show us the reality of the factsbut also because in this way they allow us to implement more targeted and effective mitigation actions.
The EPA, NASA, NOAA and NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) are working together as part of the US Greenhouse Gas Center to provide consistently and regularly updates to the inventory system of EPA methane, also developing a time series of methane emissions and tanks in the United States.
