NASA flights detect millions of Arctic methane hotspots

[NickB79]

https://phys.org/news/2020-02-nasa-flights-millions-arctic-methane.amp

In a new study, scientists with NASA's Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE), found a way to bridge that gap. In 2017, they used planes equipped with the Airborne Visible Infrared Imaging Spectrometer—Next Generation (AVIRIS—NG), a highly specialized instrument, to fly over some 20,000 square miles (30,000 square kilometers) of the Arctic landscape in the hope of detecting methane hotspots. The instrument did not disappoint.

"We consider hotspots to be areas showing an excess of 3,000 parts per million of methane between the airborne sensor and the ground," said lead author Clayton Elder of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "And we detected 2 million of these hotspots over the land that we covered."

[yonder]

1. We twiddle our thumbs while the wealthy are looking for another tax cut. Yay.

[hatrack]

2. Don't worry! We'll just . . . plant lots of trees! In the desert, in the ocean, on the icecaps . .

[hatrack]

3. Kick for those who missed this the first time . . .

Also worth noting - this survey found 2 million hotspots in about 20,000 square miles of territory mapped. The Northwest Territories are about 517,000 square miles; the Yukon about 186,000 square miles; Yakutia Oblast in Siberia is about 1.2 million square miles.

How many hotspots in all these areas?

From the same article/press release:

EDIT

Within the dataset, the team also discovered a pattern: On average, the methane hotspots were mostly concentrated within about 44 yards (40 meters) of standing bodies of water, like lakes and streams. After the 44-yard mark, the presence of hotspots gradually became sparser, and at about 330 yards (300 meters) from the water source, they dropped off almost completely.

The scientists working on this study don’t have a complete answer as to why 44 yards is the “magic number” for the whole survey region yet, but additional studies they’ve conducted on the ground provide some insight.

“After two years of ground field studies that began in 2018 at an Alaskan lake site with a methane hotspot, we found abrupt thawing of the permafrost right underneath the hotspot,” said Elder. “It’s that additional contribution of permafrost carbon – carbon that’s been frozen for thousands of years – that’s essentially contributing food for the microbes to chew up and turn into methane as the permafrost continues to thaw.”

Scientists are just scratching the surface of what is possible with the new data, but their first observations are valuable. Being able to identify the likely causes of the distribution of methane hotspots, for example, will help them to more accurately calculate this greenhouse gas’s emissions across areas where we don’t have observations. This new knowledge will improve how Arctic land models represent methane dynamics and therefore our ability to forecast the region’s impact on global climate and global climate change impacts on the Arctic.

EDIT

https://scienceblog.com/514209/nasa-flights-detect-millions-of-arctic-methane-hotspots/