Abstract
Methane is an important greenhouse gas, emissions of which have vital consequences for global climate change. Understanding and quantifying the sources (and sinks) of atmospheric methane is integral for climate change mitigation and emission reduction strategies, such as those outlined in the 2015 UN Paris Agreement on Climate Change. There are ongoing international efforts to constrain the global methane budget, using a wide variety of measurement platforms across a range of spatial and temporal scales. The advancements in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology over the past decade have opened up a new avenue for methane emission quantification. UAVs can be uniquely equipped to monitor natural and anthropogenic emissions at local scales, displaying clear advantages in versatility and manoeuvrability relative to other platforms. Their use is not without challenge, however: further miniaturization of high-performance methane instrumentation is needed to fully use the benefits UAVs afford. Developments in the models used to simulate atmospheric transport and dispersion across small, local scales are also crucial to improved flux accuracy and precision. This paper aims to provide an overview of currently available UAV-based technologies and sampling methodologies which can be used to quantify methane emission fluxes at local scales.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Rising methane: is warming feeding warming? (part 1)'.
Highlights
Understanding and quantifying the global methane (CH4) budget is crucial for the prediction and mitigation of future climate change
Two unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) platforms were used for methane measurements: a rotary-wing UAV, tethered to a ground-based off-axis Integrated Cavity Output Spectrometer (ICOS) instrument (Los Gatos Research ( ABB) Microportable Greenhouse Gas Analyzer) and a second rotary-wing UAV, carrying a miniaturized prototype of the same instrument intended for UAV-based use
The literature reviewed here demonstrates the clear capability of small UAV-based measurement platforms for quantifying methane fluxes from a range of sources at local scales
Summary
Understanding and quantifying the global methane (CH4) budget is crucial for the prediction and mitigation of future climate change. The empirical measurement data must typically be interpolated, assimilated or extrapolated, often by making use of models which simulate atmospheric dispersion and transport All such flux quantification methods have intrinsic uncertainties and assumptions, many associated with the highly challenging simulation of atmospheric circulation, and assumptions therein. R. Soc. A 379: 20200450 platform for in situ atmospheric measurements or remote sensing of methane concentrations at the spatial scale of local sources (less than 1 km) and small facilities. We review methods and approaches for quantifying methane emission fluxes which make use of UAVs as a measurement platform, focusing in particular on small UAVs with a maximum take-off weight of less than approximately 20 kg. Small UAVs are generally limited to operating at altitudes below 1 km and have shorter flight durations, making them ideally suited for trace gas detection in the near-surface atmospheric boundary layer [31,32]. The methods discussed within this review are most applicable to the characterization of methane emissions from localized- and facility-scale emission sources, be they natural or anthropogenic in nature
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