Satellites detect gas leak in open sea off Mexico

Good and bad news for the climate.

According to a recent study, scientists have detected a large leak of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from an open-ocean installation, thanks to satellite observations.

This is a first in this field.

This discovery is a new advance in the technological arsenal which makes it possible from space to identify the sources of the plumes of this gas which escapes from the fossil fuel industry.

An oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico

The study, published in the journal

, was able to identify for the first time a plume from a gas and oil production platform in the Gulf of Mexico, which had released around 40,000 tonnes over a period of time. 17 days in December.

"Our results show how satellites can detect methane contrails from offshore infrastructure," one of the authors Luis Guanter, from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain, said in a statement.

“This paves the way for systematic monitoring of industrial emissions from offshore platforms,” he adds.

Leaks that represent 30% of global production

The fossil fuel sector emitted almost 120 million tonnes of methane in 2020, almost a third of emissions linked to human activity, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), which estimates that leaks of this climate-damaging gas could easily be avoided.

The platform, near Campeche in southern Mexico, is one of the largest in the country.

Methods for the satellite detection of methane leaks from land-based facilities have been widely developed in recent years, putting manufacturers in the hot seat.

However, the techniques available did not make it possible to identify leaks from offshore installations, which represent approximately 30% of world production.

The ability of the oceans to absorb short-wave infrared actually limits the amount of light reflected and therefore detectable by satellites.

To overcome this problem, the research team managed to develop a new method to measure solar radiation reflected from the surface of the sea. Methane is responsible for around 30% of global warming.

Although it stays in the atmosphere for much less time than CO2, it has 80 times the warming power over a 20-year period.

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