Methane is the second-largest anthropogenic greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential 30 times greater than carbon dioxide over 100 year periods. It's atmospheric abundance has nearly tripled since the Industrial Revolution, mainly due to natural gas extraction and transmission, coal mining, landfills and waste management, and agricultural practices.
New York State (NYS) has committed to 40% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 relative to 1990 in its Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) goals, and in 2017 announced a Methane Reduction Plan to help achieve those goals while also achieving co-benefits on surface air quality.
Beginning in 2016, we haved deployed Picarro CRDS sensors across NYS to measure methane and CO2 in surface air (see Figs. 1 and 2), in order to assist the state in meeting its greenhouse gas reduction goals. We are presently assimilating these measurements using inverse modeling to develop an optimized regional map of methane emissions.
Time evolution of methane in ambient surface air of New York. Use slider bar to adjust period of view. Values preliminary: please contact us before any use. Missing data reflects instrument down time, e.g., due to repair or power outages.
The most recent surface mixing ratio of methane available at each of our monitoring stations. Values shown are in parts per million per volume air (ppmv). Mouse over for additional station information.