Using satellites to uncover large methane emissions from landfills

As atmospheric methane concentrations increase at record pace, it is critical to identify individual emission sources with high potential for mitigation.

by Joannes D. Maasakkers*, Daniel J. Varon, Aldís Elfarsdóttir†, Jason McKeever, Dylan Jervis, Gourav Mahapatra, Sudhanshu Pandey‡, Alba Lorente, Tobias Borsdorff, Lodewijck R. Foorthuis, Berend J. Schuit, Paul Tol, Tim A. van Kempen, Richard van Hees,

Abstract

As atmospheric methane concentrations increase at record pace, it is critical to identify individual emission sources with high potential for mitigation. Here, we leverage the synergy between satellite instruments with different spatiotemporal coverage and resolution to detect and quantify emissions from individual landfills. We use the global surveying Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) to identify large emission hot spots and then zoom in with high-resolution target-mode observations from the GHGSat instrument suite to identify the respon-sible facilities and characterize their emissions. Using this approach, we detect and analyze strongly emitting landfills (3 to 29 t hour−1) in Buenos Aires, Delhi, Lahore, and Mumbai. Using TROPOMI data in an inversion, we find that city-level emissions are 1.4 to 2.6 times larger than reported in commonly used emission inventories and that the landfills contribute 6 to 50% of those emissions. Our work demonstrates how complementary satellites enable global detection, identification, and monitoring of methane superemitters at the facility level.

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published: , 8|2022
Keywords: Landfilling, Pollution Control, Close dumps, Argentina, India, Pakistan, United States of America