NGO launches satellite to measure methane emissions – 03/04/2024 – Environment

For the first time, a non-governmental organization will have its own satellite to measure methane emissions in the atmosphere and thus encourage its containment, in an action that could be decisive in combating the climate crisis in the coming years.

MethaneSAT, developed by a subsidiary of the international NGO Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), launched into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The launch, which took place from the Vandenberg base in California, took place at 7:05 pm (Brasília time) this Monday (4) and is part of the Transporter-10 mission, which the space company promotes to take several payloads into orbit at cheaper prices.

Another 52 pieces of equipment flew with MethaneSAT, including cubesats and microsatellites. With its larger size, MethaneSAT is the last of the batch to be placed into orbit by the rocket, around 2h30 after launch.

The idea for the project was announced in 2018, with the ambition of having a system capable of measuring methane emissions more comprehensively.

It is an important greenhouse gas, with around 80 times greater capacity to trap infrared radiation in the atmosphere and heat the planet than the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. Fortunately, it is much less prevalent and also lasts less time in the atmosphere — between 7 and 12 years, while carbon dioxide can last hundreds of years.

“Methane has a shorter lifespan in the atmosphere, but a greater global warming potential than carbon dioxide, that is, it absorbs more energy per ton emitted. It is estimated that it is responsible for 20% to 30% of global warming since the pre-industrial period, being the second largest contributor”, says Karina Bruno Lima, doctoral student in climatology at UFRGS (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) and scientific popularizer.

This combination makes it a priority and urgent target in containing the climate crisis: due to its short lifespan in the atmosphere, the faster we cut emissions, the faster the impact will be seen on the planet. This is in contrast to carbon dioxide, which, even if we cut it completely now, we would still have to live with the effects of what has already been emitted for a long time.

All this methane has several origins. As the main compound in natural gas, it ends up escaping into the atmosphere in leaks from the extraction and transport systems of the substance from its natural reserves.

Agrarian activity also produces a lot of methane, especially in cattle farming (this is the famous impact of “cow fart” on climate change). And, of course, there are natural sources, such as flooded regions where decaying organic material partially bubbles up as methane into the atmosphere. But we know that the main sources of emissions today come from human activities.

What we don’t know is where exactly they are coming from. Which countries and companies are responsible for them? This is what MethaneSAT aims to clarify.

MIDWAY

The NGO’s new satellite was developed with a modest (for space projects) budget of US$88 million, coming from donors (including the Bezos Earth Fund, Arnold Ventures, the Robertson Foundation and the TED Audacious Project) and a partnership with the New Zealand government.

About the size of a washing machine, it will be in a sun-synchronous polar orbit, which will allow it to complete 15 laps around the Earth each day, flying over all parts of the planet.

Equipped with a spectrometer (capable of reading the composition of the atmosphere through the signature of light that passes through it as it is reflected from the surface) and a high-resolution infrared sensor, it will have the sensitivity to measure changes in methane concentration as small as three parts per billion.

It is not the first satellite capable of detecting methane in the atmosphere. In fact, various equipment from space agencies and even private companies make measurements of this type, but always focused on very large regions (which prevent the sources from being identified precisely) or, on the other hand, at very specific points — chosen in advance for observation by controllers. of the equipment.

The novelty of the configuration adopted by the project is that it is halfway between the two strategies, allowing it to cover vast areas with sufficient resolution to find large emitters in specific locations.

“MethaneSAT’s superpower is the ability to precisely measure methane levels with high resolution over wide areas, including smaller, diffuse sources that account for the majority of emissions in many regions,” says Steven Hamburg, EDF chief scientist and lead of the MethaneSAT project. “Knowing how much methane is coming from where and how rates are changing is essential.”

An aspect that gives even more important contours to the initiative is transparency. The data collected will be made available directly to the public through the website www.methanesat.org and also in the famous Google Earth application — Google is a partner in the project for processing information with the help of artificial intelligence.

The information will allow countries and even individual companies to know where their emissions are concentrated and to contain them more efficiently. Whether they will do this is another five hundred, but of course the first step to making it happen is determining exactly where they are taking place.

Around 150 countries, including Brazil, have joined the Global Methane Commitment to cut their gas emissions by at least 30% of 2020 levels by the year 2030. Likewise, more than 50 oil and gas companies have announced the goal of virtually eliminating methane emissions.

“To achieve the Paris Agreement’s most ambitious target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, we need to cut 43% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The cut in methane emissions would need to be around 34 % until this same period and we are a long way from being able to put this into practice”, says Lima.

Monitoring and verifying compliance with these goals, therefore, becomes critical for the coming years. In this context, MethaneSAT plays a fundamental role.

“Pressure on decision makers is a very powerful and essential tool at this time of climate crisis. Even if we cannot limit it to 1.5°C, every tenth of a degree avoided will make all the difference, so everything that helps us to Putting the problem as a priority and getting out of this inertia is very important”, says the UFRGS researcher.