Environmental Science and Engineering Seminar

We discuss remote sensing measurements to quantify emissions emissions of methane on the wide range of spatial and temporal scales needed to inform effective mitigation of methane losses to the atmosphere. MethaneSAT was a privately fund satellite sponsored by the Environmental Defense fund that measured the total column dry-air mole fraction of methane (XCH4) at high spatial resolution (100 m x 400 m) and precision (20 - 40 ppb) over target areas of 200 (up to 400) km x 200 km. It operated from March 2024 through June 2025, collecting more than 1200 scenes over hundreds of targets from an altitude of 590 km. It's airborne version, MethaneAIR, has collected hundreds of scenes (100 km x 100 km) with spatial resolution of 5 m x 25m from altitudes of 12 - 14 km. These observations uniquely enable the simultaneous quantification of discrete point and dispersed area methane sources within a single scene, addressing a critical gap in remote sensing of methane emissions. We discuss the scientific strategies, designs of the spectrometers and associated algorithms, and the main results of the program to the current time.