Using satellites to uncover large methane emissions from landfills
Joannes D. Maasakkers, Daniel J. Varon, Aldís Elfarsdóttir, Jason McKeever, Dylan Jervis, Gourav Mahapatra, Sudhanshu Pandey, Alba Lorente, Tobias Borsdorff, Lodwijck Foorthuis, Berend J. Schuit, Paul Tol, T. A. van Kempen, Richard M. van Hees, Ilse Aben
Abstract
As atmospheric methane concentrations increase at record pace, it is critical to identify individual emission sources with high potential for mitigation. Landfills are responsible for large methane emissions that can be readily abated but have been sparsely observed. Here we leverage the synergy between satellite instruments with different spatiotemporal coverage and resolution to detect and quantify emissions from individual landfill facilities. We use the global surveying Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) to identify large emission hot spots, and then zoom in with high-resolution target-mode observations from the GHGSat instrument suite to identify the responsible facilities and characterize their emissions. Using this ‘tip and cue’ approach, we detect and analyze strongly emitting landfills (3-29 t hr−1) in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Delhi (India), Lahore (Pakistan), and Mumbai (India). We find that city-level emissions are 1.6-2.8 times larger than reported in commonly used emission inventories and that the landfills contribute 5-47% of those emissions. Our work demonstrates how complementary satellites enable global detection, identification, and monitoring of methane super-emitters at the facility-level.