Abstract
Methane (CH4) emissions from human activities are a major cause of global warming, necessitating effective mitigation strategies. In particular, the palm oil industry generates palm oil mill (POM) effluent, which continuously emits methane into the atmosphere. Satellites are becoming a powerful tool to detect and quantify methane emissions, but there is no evidence of their ability to monitor those from POM ponds. In this work, the potential of methane-capable satellite instruments to detect and quantify emissions from these ponds were tested-focusing on the satellite missions with the highest sensitivity to methane emissions, namely the GHGSat commercial constellation and the PRISMA, EnMAP, and EMIT imaging spectroscopy missions. AVIRIS-NG airborne imaging spectrometer was also tested. Three methane plumes from POMs in Indonesia with GHGSat and two in Colombia with AVIRIS-NG were reported. In the cases of EnMAP, PRISMA and EMIT, substantial methane concentration enhancements over several ponds in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Colombia was observed. It remains unclear whether they are due to retrieval artifacts caused by the particular albedo of the ponds, although the low spatial correlation between those enhancements and the ponds suggests that at least a fraction of the enhancements is caused by real emissions. By leveraging advanced imaging techniques and satellite data, this research contributes to progressing strategies to address new methane emissions sources with high mitigation potential, providing a first step toward the satellite-based monitoring of methane emissions from POMs.
Access the full paper here: Detecting methane emissions from palm oil mills with airborne and spaceborne imaging spectrometers
