Study period predates the widespread use of hydraulic fracturing. | One small “hot spot” in the U.S. Southwest is responsible for producing the largest concentration of the greenhouse gas methane seen over the United States – more than triple the standard ground-based estimate — according to a new study of satellite data by scientists at NASA and the University of Michigan.
Methane is very efficient at trapping heat in the atmosphere and, like carbon dioxide, it contributes to global warming. The hot spot, near the Four Corners intersection of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, covers only about 2,500 square miles (6,500 square kilometers), or half the size of Connecticut.
In each of the seven years studied from 2003-2009, the area released about 0.59 million metric tons of methane into the atmosphere. This is almost 3.5 times the estimate for the same area in the European Union’s widely used Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research.
In the study published online Thursday, October 9th in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, researchers used observations made by the European Space Agency’s Scanning Imaging Absorption Spectrometer for Atmospheric Chartography (SCIAMACHY) instrument. SCIAMACHY measured greenhouse gases from 2002 to 2012. The atmospheric hot spot persisted throughout the study period. A ground station in the Total Carbon Column Observing Network, operated by the Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, provided independent validation of the measurement.
To calculate the emissions rate that would be required to produce the observed concentration of methane in the air, the authors performed high-resolution regional simulations using a chemical transport model, which simulates how weather moves and changes airborne chemical compounds.
Research scientist Christian Frankenberg of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, first noticed the Four Corners signal years ago in SCIAMACHY data.
“We didn’t focus on it because we weren’t sure if it was a true signal or an instrument error,” Frankenberg said.
The study’s lead author, Eric Kort of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, noted the study period predates the widespread use of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, near the hot spot. This indicates the methane emissions should not be attributed to fracking but instead to leaks in natural gas production and processing equipment in New Mexico’s San Juan Basin, which is the most active coalbed methane production area in the country.
Natural gas is 95-98 percent methane. Methane is colorless and odorless, making leaks hard to detect without scientific instruments.
“The results are indicative that emissions from established fossil fuel harvesting techniques are greater than inventoried,” Kort said. “There’s been so much attention on high-volume hydraulic fracturing, but we need to consider the industry as a whole.”
Coalbed methane is gas that lines pores and cracks within coal. In underground coal mines, it is a deadly hazard that causes fatal explosions almost every year as it seeps out of the rock. After the U.S. energy crisis of the 1970s, techniques were invented to extract the methane from the coal and use it for fuel. By 2012, coalbed methane supplied about 8 percent of all natural gas in the United States.
Frankenberg noted that the study demonstrates the unique role space-based measurements can play in monitoring greenhouse gases.
“Satellite data cannot be as accurate as ground-based estimates, but from space, there are no hiding places,” Frankenberg said.
Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
Here is the study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL061503/abstract
Four corners: The largest US methane anomaly viewed from space
Abstract
Methane (CH4) is a potent greenhouse gas and ozone precursor. Quantifying methane emissions is critical for projecting and mitigating changes to climate and air quality. Here we present CH4 observations made from space combined with Earth-based remote sensing column measurements. Results indicate the largest anomalous CH4 levels viewable from space over the conterminous U.S. are located at the Four Corners region in the Southwest U.S. Emissions exceeding inventory estimates, totaling 0.59 Tg CH4/yr [0.50–0.67; 2σ], are necessary to bring high-resolution simulations and observations into agreement. This underestimated source approaches 10% of the EPA estimate of total U.S. CH4 emissions from natural gas. The persistence of this CH4 signal from 2003 onward indicates that the source is likely from established gas, coal, and coalbed methane mining and processing. This work demonstrates that space-based observations can identify anomalous CH4 emission source regions and quantify their emissions with the use of a transport model.
It isn’t hard to see why this hotspot appears. An examination of Google Earth right over the hotspot reveals a plethora of well sites:
A closeup view leaves no question:
It seems to be little more than a matter of leakage, something easily dealt with with a natural gas leak sniffer used by many utility companies and some simple preventative maintenance.
From the Four Corners Oil and Gas Conference website:
The Four Corners area, which is made up of Northwestern New Mexico, Southwestern Colorado, Northeastern Arizona and Southeastern Utah, contains the San Juan Basin which is one of the premier natural gas deposits in the United States. The San Juan Basin has contributed more than eight percent of the nation’s current natural gas supply. Our area has produced more than 370 million barrels of oil and nearly 38 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. There are currently more than 20,000 producing wells with a prediction of up to 5,000 additional wells targeting natural gas in the upcoming years. The United States Geological Survey projects possible undiscovered resources at more than 50 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 148 million barrels of natural gas liquids and between 7 and 35 million barrels of oil.
Source: http://www.fourcornersoilandgas.com/
I suggest that a little bit of self-policing applied as a key topic in the next Four Corners Oil and Gas Conference would go a long way towards preventing yet another regulatory hammer coming down from the EPA.
Note that the other “hotspot” for methane emissions is near Bakersfield, California, with another concentration of wells, in a state that has greater regulatory control over emissions:
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/sanjuaninfo
There are currently 20,000 operating gas AND oil wells in the San Juan Basin. Wet, dry, shale, sands, shallow and deep drills.
Required watching for any methane commenter. Methane concentrations in the atmosphere from the AIRS instrument on the Aqua satellite. Every day from 2002 to 2008 although at lower resolution. But still a completely different picture (and some funky music to go along with it).
Very nice, thanks. Looks like most emission comes from heavily forested areas, so we’d best chop all that down right away to prevent global warming…
It also appears to me that the concentrations are higher during the winter months than the summer months. But maybe I’m wrong. It would be interesting to see a smoothed monthly variation.
Unless my eyes deceive me, there is another elevated concentration of methane in West Central Ohio, where there is no fracking going on, next to no industry, and a below average concentration of natural gas pipelines. Not much except acres and acres of corn and soybeans. Oh yes, there are also a garbage-load of wind turbines in Paulding and Van Wert Counties.
Perhaps the authors and many of the commenters here are over-analyzing the 4-corners hot spot?
Academia has been cranking out thousands of syuntists for the past decades. If they can’t over-analyze stuff, they won’t have anything to do. Think of it as a WPA project, but without the art deco.
It’s a small point, but the 95-98% methane composition of natural gas percentage used above refers to processed natural gas, not wellhead natural gas, the issue related to the hotspot. A quick search brought up the figure of 82% methane for typical wellhead natural gas. Water vapor, butane, carbon dioxide, propane, pentane, nitrogen and significant amounts of ethane are also present. The latter, ethane, is apparently substantially removed from the end product because of the high heat of its combustion, and instead serves as a feed stock for ethylene, and subsequently our beloved hygienic and utilitarian plastic bags.
Interesting that the graph “No Data”s the San Francisco Bay, most of the coast, and the entire Olympic Peninsula.
That hot spot appears to me to be directly above the McElmo Dome. The McElmo Dome contains one of the largest accumulations of Carbon Dioxide gas within the Leadville formation. It is extracted, compressed, and conveyed via pipeline to Texas where about 1 billion cubic ft per day is used in an enhanced oil recovery project in the Permian Basin by Kinder Morgan, inc.
Geologically, the McElmo dome CO2 resource is an example of a thermally overmature natural gas field. There are a few others in the general 4 corners region as well.
http://www.geology.utah.gov/emp/co2sequest/pdf/reservoirs.pdf
Doesn’t anybody have a globe anymore ?
These little specks of data must get lost in the bigger picture.
re: Methane Hotspot
I’d look for a disproportionate number of patrons of Mexican restaurants. I mean, who doesn’t love a good burrito?
Too funny. Perhaps a study of the geographical correlation between hatch chili production and methane gas is in order.
Um ! Sir; isn’t methane pretty much the same as natural gas. Why not just capture it and burn it for cooking or hot water.
What’s the big fuss over ready available natural gas just bubbling out of the ground.
Just where the heck is Jed Clampett when you need him ??
I would venture that it is just as practical and as easy to gather up free methane to use for energy, as it is to gather up, all the sunshine that falls on the same piece of ground.
Now I would almost bet that there is more energy to be swept up from the methane, than from the free solar energy that lands on the very same piece of land.
Suggestion:
To reduce the scaremongering, change ppb to ppm OR
to increase scaremongering, change ppb to ppt.
Because, as we look for the wood among the trees, the real name of the game is SCAREMONGERING.
If methane is a greenhouse gas and greenhouse gases increase temperature, does this area have an anomalously high temperature profile compared to areas without such high methane levels?
Anthony, you possibly have data for a thermometer in the area. Could you comment, please?
[article] “This indicates the methane emissions should not be attributed to fracking but instead to leaks in natural gas production and processing equipment in New Mexico’s San Juan Basin, which is the most active coalbed methane production area in the country”.
—————
Really now, ….. but …………….
Shouldn’t that satellite be seeing a methane “hot spot”, or at the very least a “warm spot”, over eastern Kentucky, Wyoming and/or West Virginia?
West Virginia has 48,215 producing natural gas wells and is ranked #3 in the “top 10” natural gas (CH4, methane) producing states.
Which, by the way, WV has 6,000 more NG wells than the #4 ranking New Mexico (42,644). Reference: http://www.propublica.org/special/map-number-of-producing-gas-wells-708
And the “4 corners” coal production doesn’t hold a “canary” to …….
“U.S. Coal Production by State
State ———— 2013 Total (Thousand Short Tons)
1 Wyoming ——- 388,345
2 West Virginia — 112,910
3 Kentucky ——– 79,949
4 Pennsylvania —- 54,215
5 Illinois ———– 52,124
6 Texas ———— 42,559
7 Montana ——— 42,231
8 Indiana ———– 38,945
9 North Dakota —- 27,639
10 Ohio ————- 25,762
11 Colorado ——– 23,789
12 New Mexico — 21,969 ”
Ref: http://www.nma.org/pdf/c_production_state_rank.pdf
——————
Maybe the winds in those “top” producing states are blowing the “leaky” methane away before the satellite can see it.
That a satellite looksee and a report would be pursued seems a bit outside reasonable concern. Taken in context of the vastness of our atmosphere plus the global methane production, a little spot in Texas just doesn’t rise to my level of knicker twisting and panty bunching.
I deny.
It defies all logic that Washington DC does not score number one for methane emissions.
The concentrated BS must be outgassing somewhere.
Perhaps the $85 billion per month of papering over this BS is forcing the gas underground so it escapes via natural vents outside the Washington area.
Do I need sarc?
Unfortunately it looks more and more likely that all AGW is entirely manufactured.
Before you permit yourself to get all scare-defied over more methane being released into the atmosphere and even if you buy into recent (since WWII) surface temperature rise being as a result of increased greenhouse gasses, do your research and find that methane is an irrelevant gas in the theoretical causes because of the limited bands of energy it can possibly absorb and from those two bands upon which it can act it must share that potential with one more prevalent which has already done the job almost completely in those bands leaving nothing much for methane to work upon. Those who promote gloom & doom from impending release of stores of methane wrongly assume the gas would have unlimited stores of energy upon which it could draw to heat the planet should that release occur. Therein lies the failure of this sub-theory even assuming such release is possible and imminent. There is no such pool of energy.
The energy beamed by the sun comes to Earth in the form of short waves, is absorbed by the planet, and some is transmitted back to space in the form of long waves in various bands of energy. Warmists’ Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory holds that greenhouse gasses intercept by absorption and transmit back to Earth a percentage of the long wave radiation energy in the form of kinetic heat in natural balance until humans destroy the balance by over supplying unnatural amounts of greenhouse gasses by which such process and added heat causes more of the principle greenhouse gas, water vapor, to be produced accelerating the process in an ever heightening loop of heating Gaia. Methane is a “greenhouse gas.” The misnamed process acts nothing like a greenhouse, BTW, and empirical measurements, the acid test of science, do not reflect water vapor increasing as required in proportion to CO₂ increases or even out of proportion. No increase of water vapor at all in fact has been measured among the several failures of the theory to be sustained by empirical measurement.
Methane (CH4) has only two narrow absorption bands at 3.3 microns and 7.5 microns in the radiation spectrum. Theoretically, CH4 is 20 times more effective an absorber than CO2 – in those bands. However, CH4 is only 0.00017% (1.7 parts per million) of the atmosphere. Moreover, both of its bands occur at wavelengths where H2O is already absorbing virtually all energy. Because water vapor is much more plentiful in the atmosphere than methane (or any other GHG), H2O absorbs vastly more energy and is by far the most important greenhouse gas. On any given day, H2O is a percent or two of the atmosphere (1.0-2.0% or 5,882 to 11,764 times as prevalent as methane in the atmosphere, or 5882÷20=294.1 [or 588.4] multiple the absorber as methane); we call that humidity. Hence, any radiation that CH4 might absorb has already been absorbed by H2O in the only radiation bands methane absorbs energy. Once the energy in a band of the spectrum has been sucked dry, no additional absorptive gas can absorb more. Painting a black window another coat will not keep out more light. In other words, the ratio of the percentages of water to methane is such that the effects of CH4 are completely masked by H2O because the absorption of infrared energy in the bands of the spectrum affected by methane has already been saturated by H2O absorption. The amount of CH4 would have to increase 100-fold to make it comparable to H2O and even then it would no longer matter because water vapor has beat it to the punch.
There is not much ambient energy in those two little short, stray bands of the radiation spectrum to start with and most of that has already been worked over by H2O from time immemorial leaving only the scraps to poor CH4, which can never effect climate to any appreciable or worrisome amount. Because it absorbs energy in a laboratory does not mean it works that way in a chaotic atmosphere with other agents and processes present.
Learn more of what the science neophytes should have investigated before fearing methane, which is an irrelevant greenhouse gas (graphs, observed facts & all that tedious math kind of stuff) —
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/11/methane-the-irrelevant-greenhouse-gas/