NASA scientists, using a tool designed to study how dust affects climate, have identified more than 50 methane-emitting hotspots around the world, a development that could help combat the potent greenhouse gas.
\nAccording to international media, NASA said on Tuesday that its Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) had identified more than 50 methane \u201csuper-emitters\u201d in Central Asia, the Middle East and the southwestern United States since it was installed in July onboard the International Space Station.
\nThe newly measured methane hotspots \u2014 some previously known and others just discovered \u2014 include sprawling oil and gas facilities and large landfill sites. Methane is responsible for roughly 30 percent of the global rise in temperatures to date.
\n\u201cReining in methane emissions is key to limiting global warming,\u201d NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement, adding that the instrument will help \u201cpinpoint\u201d methane super-emitters so that such emissions can be stopped \u201cat the source\u201d.<\/p>\n
Methane is far more effective than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in Earth\u2019s atmosphere. Our new @NASAClimate EMIT mission, designed to measure atmospheric dust, has mapped more than 50 methane \u201csuper-emitters\u201d around the planet: https:\/\/t.co\/d4OhBwIeOQ pic.twitter.com\/9QLxDMN0nW
\n\u2014 NASA (@NASA) October 25, 2022
\nCircling Earth every 90 minutes from its perch onboard the space station some 400km (250 miles) high, EMIT is able to scan vast tracts of the planet dozens of kilometres across while also focusing in on areas as small as a football field.
\nThe instrument, called an imaging spectrometer, was built primarily to identify the mineral composition of dust blown into Earth\u2019s atmosphere from deserts and other arid regions, but it has proven adept at detecting large methane emissions.
\n\u201cSome of the [methane] plumes EMIT detected are among the largest ever seen \u2014 unlike anything that has ever been observed from space,\u201d said Andrew Thorpe, a Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) research technologist leading the methane studies.
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