Methane Mapping
Methane Mapping around 30 percent of the changes to the Earth’s climate have been attributed to methane emissions. While the gas can be found anywhere from industrial cattle farming to fossil fuel extraction, it is almost impossible to track this pollutant even though it is released in vast amounts into the atmosphere every year. Methane Mapping is not visible to the human eye, while satellites cannot spot it either due to multispectral near-infrared wavelength sensors belonging to the atmospheric spectral noise.
So Google and the Environmental Defense Fund are doing this by teaming up on a new project with big goals for the immediate crisis. As announced in a new blog post today, Methane Mapping SAT is a new, AI-enhanced satellite project which will allow the companies to better track and measure these dangerous emissions and hopefully offer the info up to researchers all over the world .
Yael Maguire, Google’s Vice President and General Manager of Geo Developer & Sustainability, stated on February 14 that “Methane SAT is highly sophisticated; it has a unique ability to monitor both high-emitting Methane Mapping sources and small sources spread over a wide area.” To manage such a massive task, the Environmental Defense Fund developed new algorithmic software which was implemented alongside the experts from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory , the Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Science , and the Harvard: Center for Astrophysics . Their new Artificial Intelligence system has the ability to calculate methane emissions at certain locations and keep track of the path which these pollutants will take after entering the atmosphere.
In the first week of March, Methane SAT is set to fly aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The satellite will orbit the Earth fifteen times per day once it is deployed from the missile at over 350 miles in altitude, achieving speeds of about 1,660 mph. Moreover, Google and EDF are aiming to use their AI systems to compile a global map of oil and gas establishment facilities to figure out what parts are the worst offenders. It is stated by Google that methane identification will be analogous to the way its AI programs examine satellite photos in Google Maps. Rather than road name indications, street markings, and curb tags, though, Methane SAT will help label the places similar to oil storage buckets.
On Wednesday, Maguire also informed that “once we have this complete infrastructure map, we can overlay the Methane Mapping SAT data that shows where Methane Mapping is coming from. When the two maps are lined up, we can see how emissions correspond to specific infrastructure and obtain a far better understanding of the types of sources generally contributing most to methane leaks”. It will help watchdogs and experts trying to bring the number of potential oil and gas emission locations that are prone to leaks under control.
As for the last one, all this much-needed information will be available through the official Methane Mapping SAT website and through Google Earth Engine, the company’s open-source global environmental monitoring platform, later in 2021. In the very near future, the new emissions data can be combined with datasets on factors such as waterways, land cover, and regional borders to better understand where we are as a planet and what can be done to avoid the worst effects of climate change.