Scot Miller (Environmental Health & Engineering, Whiting School of Engineering)

Darryn Waugh (Earth & Planetary Sciences, Krieger School of Arts & Sciences)

Methane is the second-most important greenhouse gas and plays a critical role in global climate. Methane mysteriously began to rise in 2007 and has been increasing ever since, implying that methane emissions are also increasing. Scientists do not understand where, how, when, or why emissions changed.

A new satellite promises to fundamentally change methane monitoring. The Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite launched in late 2017 and observes methane with far better global coverage than previous satellites. We plan to create a TROPOMI-based tropospheric methane product and use this product to estimate global methane emissions. This research will elucidate the distribution of global methane, and we can begin to hypothesize which source types are driving emissions, human or natural.