Detection and quantification of methane plumes with the MethaneAIR airborne spectrometer
2025
L. Guanter | L. Guanter | J. Warren | M. Omara | A. Chulakadabba | A. Chulakadabba | J. Roger | M. Sargent | J. E. Franklin | S. C. Wofsy | R. Gautam
<p>The MethaneAIR imaging spectrometer was originally developed as an airborne demonstrator of the MethaneSAT satellite mission. MethaneAIR enables accurate methane concentration retrievals from high-spectral-resolution measurements in the 1650 nm methane absorption feature at a nominal spatial sampling of 5 <span class="inline-formula">×</span> 25 m. In this work, we present a computationally efficient data processing chain optimized for the detection and quantification of methane plumes with MethaneAIR. It involves the retrieval of methane concentration enhancements (<span class="inline-formula">ΔXCH<sub>4</sub></span>) with the high-precision matched-filter retrieval, which is applied to 1650 nm retrievals for the first time. Methane plumes are detected via visual inspection of the resulting <span class="inline-formula">ΔXCH<sub>4</sub></span> maps. We evaluated the performance of this processing scheme with simulated plumes, intercomparison with other methods, and controlled methane releases. We applied this processing chain to MethaneAIR data mosaics acquired over the Permian Basin during flights in 2021 and 2023, which resulted in the detection of hundreds of point sources above 100–200 kg h<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−1</sup></span>, with a conservative detection limit of around 120 kg h<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−1</sup></span>. Our results show the consistency of MethaneAIR's <span class="inline-formula">ΔXCH<sub>4</sub></span> matched-filter retrievals as well as their potential for the detection and quantification of methane point sources across large areas.</p>
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