SMART-CH4 - Satellite-based methane quantification

SMART-CH4 - Satellite-based methane quantification#

The ESA initiative SMART-CH4 (Satellite Monitoring of Atmospheric Methane) is part of the EC-ESA JOINT EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE INITIATIVE. It builds upon previous experience and projects (e.g., Methane+, HighResCH4, MethEO, MethaneCAMP, etc.) in satellite-based methane quantification, aiming to enhance emission products derived from satellites. SMART-CH4 is an ESA initiative, coordinated by CEA (LSCE) and carried out by a consortium of 12 academic and industrial partners in Europe and Canada.

SMART-CH4 is composed of 3 work packages: WP1 for the scientific requirement consolidation, WP2 for the product development and validation, and WP3 for the scientific impact and the assessment of new products and methods. CEA-LSCE is in charge of the scientific and project coordination, and contributes to regional and global inversions as part of WP3.

Inversions run at LSCE are performed within the CIF: regional inversions of CH4 in South America with CHIMERE, and global inversions of CH4 and isotopes with LMDz. Further details on the project can be found here.

Objectives#

The key objectives and tasks of SMART-CH4 include:

  • Enhancing TROPOMI retrievals and multi-sensor products, incorporating SWIR/TIR data from IASI and TROPOMI.

  • Advancing fine-scale emission detection using mid-resolution mappers like TROPOMI and high-resolution imagers such as GHGSat, MethaneSAT, EnMAP, or PRISMA. These improvements will lower detection thresholds, enabling the identification of smaller emitters like landfills, wetlands, and agricultural sources.

  • Utilizing improved products to deepen our understanding of regional methane budgets, focusing on three key target regions: Bucharest (Romania), the Artic and South America.

  • Contributing to the attribution of recent trends in CH4 concentrations to specific sectors on a global scale.

Contacts#

For further requests or informations, please contact:

What can you find in this documentation?#

Here, we present some content to help running inversions within the CIF, as performed in the framework of SMART-CH4. In particular, we provide an user-friendly toolbox and code to run regional inversions with the CTM CHIMERE and TROPOMI XCH4 satellite observations. It includes the pre-processing of the inputs, yamls to run the simulations and notebooks to perform basic analysis of the results. Yamls are also provided to run global inversions of both CH4 and isotopic concentration ratios (in prep!).

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