A14F-07
Using a multi-scale approach to identify and quantify oil and gas emissions: a case study for GHG emissions verification
Monday, 14 December 2015: 17:18
3012 (Moscone West)
Colm Sweeney, NOAA, Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, CO, United States; University of Colorado at Boulder, CIRES, Boulder, CO, United States, Eric A Kort, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI, United States, Chris Rella, Picarro Inc., Santa Clara, CA, United States, Stephen A Conley, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, United States, Anna Karion, NOAA Boulder, ESRL, Boulder, CO, United States, Thomas Lauvaux, Pennsylvania State University Main Campus, University Park, PA, United States and Christian Frankenberg, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States
Abstract:
Along with a boom in oil and natural gas production in the US, there has been a substantial effort to understand the true environmental impact of these operations on air and water quality, as well asnet radiation balance. This multi-institution effort funded by both governmental and non-governmental agencies has provided a case study for identification and verification of emissions using a multi-scale, top-down approach. This approach leverages a combination of remote sensing to identify areas that need specific focus and airborne in-situ measurements to quantify both regional and large- to mid-size single-point emitters. Ground-based networks of mobile and stationary measurements provide the bottom tier of measurements from which process-level information can be gathered to better understand the specific sources and temporal distribution of the emitters. The motivation for this type of approach is largely driven by recent work in the Barnett Shale region in Texas as well as the San Juan Basin in New Mexico and Colorado; these studies suggest that relatively few single-point emitters dominate the regional emissions of CH4.
