Understanding, prioritizing, and mitigating methane (CH
4
) emissions requires quantifying CH
4
budgets from facility scales to regional scales with the ability to differentiate between source sectors. We deployed a tiered observing system for multiple basins in the United States (San Joaquin Valley, Uinta, Denver-Julesburg, Permian, Marcellus). We quantify strong point source emissions (>10 kg CH
4
h
−1
) using airborne imaging spectrometers, attribute them to sectors, and assess their intermittency with multiple revisits. We compare these point source emissions to total basin CH
4
fluxes derived from inversion of Sentinel-5p satellite CH
4
observations. Across basins, point sources make up on average 40% of the regional flux. We sampled some basins several times across multiple months and years and find a distinct bimodal structure to emission timescales: the total point source budget is split nearly in half by short-lasting and long-lasting emission events. With the increasing airborne and satellite observing capabilities planned for the near future, tiered observing systems will more fully quantify and attribute CH
4
emissions from facility to regional scales, which is needed to effectively and efficiently reduce methane emissions.
Offshore oil and natural gas platforms are responsible for about 30% of global oil and natural gas production. Despite the large share of global production there are few studies that have directly measured atmospheric methane emanating from these platforms. This study maps CH4 emissions from shallow water offshore oil and gas platforms with an imaging spectrometer by employing a method to capture the sun glint reflection from the water directly surrounding the target areas. We show how remote sensing with imaging spectrometers and glint targeting can be used to efficiently observe offshore infrastructure, quantify methane emissions, and attribute those emissions to specific infrastructure types. In 2021, the Global Airborne Observatory (GAO) platform, which is an aircraft equipped with a Visible Short-Wave InfraRed (VSWIR) imaging spectrometer, surveyed over 150 offshore platforms and surrounding infrastructure in US federal and state waters in the Gulf of Mexico representing ~ 8% of active shallow water infrastructure there. We find that CH4 emissions from the measured platforms exhibit highly skewed super emitter behavior. We find that these emissions mostly come from tanks and vent booms or stacks. We also find that the persistence and the loss rate from shallow water offshore infrastructure tends to be much higher than for typical onshore production.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.