Constraining global methane emissions using TROPOMI data
Sander Houweling, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, s.houweling@sron.nl (Presenter)
Jacob van Peet, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, j.c.a.van.peet@vu.nl
Tonatiuh Nunez Ramirez, Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry, tnunez@bgc-jena.mpg.de
Julia Marshall, DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt), julia.marshall@dlr.de
Ilse Aben, SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, i.aben@sron.nl
Michael Buchwitz, University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), buchwitz@uni-bremen.de
Cyril Crevoisier, Analyse du Rayonnement Atmosphérique, cyril.crevoisier@lmd.ipsl.fr
Tobias Borsdorff, SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, t.borsdorff@sron.nl
Alba Lorente Delgado, SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, a.lorente.delgado@sron.nl
Richard van Hees, SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, r.m.van.hees@sron.nl
Brian Kerridge, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, brian.kerridge@stfc.ac.uk
Diane Knappett, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, diane.knappett@stfc.ac.uk
Nicolas Meilhac, LMD Polytechnique, nicolas.meilhac@lmd.polytechnique.fr
Christian Retscher, European Space Agency, christian.retscher@esa.int
Oliver Schneising, University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), oliver.schneising@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de
Richard Siddans, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, richard.siddans@stfc.ac.uk
Steffen Vanselow, University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP), vanselow@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de
Lucy Ventress, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, lucy.ventress@stfc.ac.uk
The global trend of methane is known to be capricious for reasons that are poorly understood. In 2020, its growth rate reached a record high in the almost four decades of measurements from the NOAA cooperative sampling network, beating even the year of the Mt Pinatubo eruption. Ironically, this happens in a time when governments world-wide are more aware than ever about the urgency of the climate change problem and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, mitigating methane emissions is among the lowest hanging fruit of cost-effective short-term climate benefits. Although the path forward is clear, the connection between changing emissions and changing growth rates should still be made much stronger.
Methane retrievals from the TROPOMI satellite instrument have been very successful in pointing to important opportunities for local emission reductions, notably from the oil and gas industry. The question, however, is if its unprecedented coverage can also make a difference connecting these and other anthropogenic emission to the global methane increase. To this end, we conducted a global inverse modelling intercomparison as part of the ESA METHANE+ project using two years of TROPOMI data in the CarboScope and TM5-4DVAR inverse modelling systems. Inversions results will be presented using data from the RemoTeC and WFMD retrievals for the years 2018 and 2019, when the methane growth rate was increasing strongly already. Comparisons have been made with the use of surface and GOSAT measurements, to study the added value of TROPOMI.
The difficulty of using global satellite data is to account for subtle sources of systematic error in the data as well as atmospheric transport models that can have important impacts on large-scale emission estimates. We will discuss the approach that was taken, and its evaluation using independent surface, aircraft and total column measurements.
Poster: Poster_Houweling__155_25.pdf
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: 3.2b Flux estimates and atmospheric inversions from space-based GHG measurements
Session Date: Wednesday (6/16) 9:45 AM