Strong temporal variability in methane fluxes from natural gas well pad soils

Lyman, Seth; Tran, H.; Mansfield, Marc L.; Bowers, Ric; Smith, Alexander Thomas T.

doi:10.1016/j.apr.2020.05.011

Cited by 14 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 59 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In addition, atmospheric pumping plays a decisive role in the volatilization of organic gases in polluted soil (Auer et al., 1996; Rivett et al., 2011), ecological restoration of land (Foor et al., 1995; Zhang et al., 2004), gas emission from waste landfills (Christophersen et al., 2001; Rivett et al., 2011), transportation of gases such as SO 2 , CH 4 , etc. (Ganot et al., 2014; Lyman et al., 2020; Meyers & Baldocchi, 1993; Moya et al., 2019; Pinault & Baubron, 1997), detection of radioactive gases following a nuclear explosion (Bourret et al., 2019), noble gas migration (Hintenlang & Al‐Ahmady, 1992; Lagus et al., 1994), and 222 Rn (Clements & Wilkening, 1974; Nazaroff, 1992). Among these, 222 Rn and volatile organic compounds (Provoost et al., 2010) have a direct impact on the environment in which humans live and relate to potential health hazards.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Passive Breathing of Earth‐Air: “Fingerprint” Evidence From Moisture Records

Wang

et al. 2022

JGR Atmospheres

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“Earth‐air” refers to air in the vadose zone. Studies have long suggested that earth‐air undergoes a passive breathing effect due to atmospheric pumping. The earth‐air can be modeled as an ideal gas in a closed system, so that the volume of earth‐air varies as the atmospheric pressure (AP) fluctuates. When AP rises, earth‐air is compressed and external air is drawn into the vadose zone. Conversely, when AP drops, earth‐air expands and moist earth‐air enters the atmosphere. In arid regions, there is a moisture gradient in soil due to dryness of the climate: the humidity is relatively low in the upper soil layer, and relatively high in the subsoil. Therefore, if earth‐air undergoes passive breathing, the humidity of earth‐air will fluctuate with AP. This means that passive breathing of the earth‐air should leave traces in the recorded moisture which exactly match AP fluctuations. In this work, clear evidence is presented for the existence of earth‐air passive breathing. This is accomplished by using an innovatively‐designed trap to monitor humidity in 30 cm gravelly sand and showing that these moisture/temperature records contain fingerprints which are characteristic of passive breathing. It is found that relative humidity (RH) in soil is negatively correlated with the atmospheric fluctuations. The correlation between 10‐min average AP and RH timeseries reaches −0.75 for the time‐periods of 20 days. This study provides a new understanding in land‐atmosphere heat/mass exchange from the perspective of vertical fluid dynamics.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Passive Breathing of Earth‐Air: “Fingerprint” Evidence From Moisture Records

Wang

et al. 2022

JGR Atmospheres

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We present values as mean (lower 95% confidence limit, upper 95% confidence limit) when presentation of confidence limits is appropriate. We calculated confidence limits in Python with the scikits.bootstrap package, following Lyman, et al [59]. Because the datasets collected in this study are heavy-tailed (as are most oil and gas-related datasets [60]), most of the statistical techniques we used are non-parametric.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High Ethylene and Propylene in an Area Dominated by Oil Production

et al. 2020

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We measured the spatial distribution and composition of ozone-forming hydrocarbons, alcohols, and carbonyls in Utah’s Uinta Basin during the winter months of 2019 and 2020. The Uinta Basin contains about 10,000 producing oil and gas wells. Snow cover and the region’s unique topography (i.e., a large basin entirely surrounded by mountains) promote strong, multi-day temperature inversion episodes that concentrate pollution and lead to wintertime ozone production. Indeed, organic compound concentrations were about eight times higher during inversion episodes than during snow-free springtime conditions. We examined spatial associations between wintertime concentrations of organics and oil and gas sources in the region, and we found that concentrations of highly reactive alkenes were higher in areas with dense oil production than in areas with dense gas production. Total alkene+acetylene concentrations were 267 (42, 1146; lower and upper 95% confidence limits) µg m−3 at locations with 340 or more producing oil wells within 10 km (i.e., 75th percentile) versus 12 (9, 23) µg m−3 at locations with 15 or fewer oil wells (i.e., 25th percentile). Twenty-eight percent of the potential for organic compounds to produce ozone was due to alkenes in areas with dense oil production. Spatial correlations and organic compound ratios indicated that the most likely source of excess alkenes in oil-producing areas was natural gas-fueled engines, especially lean-burning (i.e., high air:fuel ratio) artificial lift engines.

show abstract

“…S8 and S10) might occur because of the lack of (1) a reasonable wetland module that can adequately account for inundated hydro-ecological dynamics, (2) advective heat transport at the air-ground interface through rainfall infiltration and within subsurface soils through water transfer, (3) a representation of microbial dynamics, and (4) the geological micro-seepage emission of CH 4 , as reported in previous studies (Anthony et al, 2012;Etiope and Klusman, 2010;Russell et al, 2020). For instance, Lyman et al (2020) showed large temporal variability of CH 4 at natural gas well pad soils, similar to the observations at IVO (Anthony et al, 2012). The advective heat transport not only impacts soil temperature, but Table 3.…”

Section: Evaluation Of Co 2 and Ch 4 Fluxesmentioning

confidence: 92%

Improved ELMv1-ECA simulations of zero-curtain periods and cold-season CH<sub>4</sub> and CO<sub>2</sub> emissions at Alaskan Arctic tundra sites

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Field measurements have shown that cold-season methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions contribute a substantial portion to the annual net carbon emissions in permafrost regions. However, most earth system land models do not accurately reproduce cold-season CH4 and CO2 emissions, especially over the shoulder (i.e., thawing and freezing) seasons. Here we use the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) land model version 1 (ELMv1-ECA) to tackle this challenge and fill the knowledge gap of how cold-season CH4 and CO2 emissions contribute to the annual totals at Alaska Arctic tundra sites. Specifically, we improved the ELMv1-ECA soil water phase-change scheme, environmental controls on microbial activity, and the methane module. Results demonstrate that both soil temperature and the duration of zero-curtain periods (i.e., the fall period when soil temperatures linger around 0 ∘C) simulated by the updated ELMv1-ECA were greatly improved; e.g., the mean absolute error (MAE) in zero-curtain durations at 12 cm depth was reduced by 62 % on average. Furthermore, the MAEs of simulated cold-season carbon emissions at three tundra sites were improved by 72 % and 70 % on average for CH4 and CO2, respectively. Overall, CH4 emitted during the early cold season (September and October), which often includes most of the zero-curtain period in Arctic tundra, accounted for more than 50 % of the total emissions throughout the entire cold season (September to May) in the model, compared with around 49.4 % (43 %–58 %) in observations. From 1950 to 2017, both CO2 emissions during the zero-curtain period and during the entire cold season showed increasing trends, for example, of 0.17 and 0.36 gC m−2 yr−1 at Atqasuk. This study highlights the importance of zero-curtain periods in facilitating cold-season CH4 and CO2 emissions from tundra ecosystems.

show abstract

Strong temporal variability in methane fluxes from natural gas well pad soils

Cited by 14 publications

References 59 publications

Passive Breathing of Earth‐Air: “Fingerprint” Evidence From Moisture Records

Passive Breathing of Earth‐Air: “Fingerprint” Evidence From Moisture Records

High Ethylene and Propylene in an Area Dominated by Oil Production

Improved ELMv1-ECA simulations of zero-curtain periods and cold-season CH<sub>4</sub> and CO<sub>2</sub> emissions at Alaskan Arctic tundra sites

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Strong temporal variability in methane fluxes from natural gas well pad soils

Cited by 14 publications

References 59 publications

Passive Breathing of Earth‐Air: “Fingerprint” Evidence From Moisture Records

Passive Breathing of Earth‐Air: “Fingerprint” Evidence From Moisture Records

High Ethylene and Propylene in an Area Dominated by Oil Production

Improved ELMv1-ECA simulations of zero-curtain periods and cold-season CH&lt;sub&gt;4&lt;/sub&gt; and CO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; emissions at Alaskan Arctic tundra sites

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Improved ELMv1-ECA simulations of zero-curtain periods and cold-season CH<sub>4</sub> and CO<sub>2</sub> emissions at Alaskan Arctic tundra sites