News

We've all seen TV detectives dust a scene for fingerprints. In a study in the journal Nature, a team of scientists did something similar, using carbon isotopes to identify the fingerprints†of methane one of the world's most powerful climate pollutants in the atmosphere.

The study examined the isotopic signature from two types of methane emissions: biogenic (sources like wetlands, landfills and agriculture) and thermogenic (encompassing geologic seepage, activities associated with the oil and gas supply chain or coal mines).

The evidence suggests that not only are we significantly underestimating the share global methane emissionsfrom thermogenic sources, we're also underestimating how much comes from the production, delivery and use of oil and gas and the production of coal.

According to the study:

After accounting for geological seepage, emissions attributable directly to the global fossil-fuel industry (natural gas, oil and coal production) are 2060% higher than in current global inventories.”

The findings mirror results of many of the studies of methane emissions from the natural gas supply chain coordinated by EDF, which also found that overall levels of methane coming from U.S. oil and gas production and delivery infrastructure were higher than previously thought. In one of those analyses which included the use of diverse types of measurements emissions were nearly double what the Environmental Protection Agency had previously estimated. It provided some the critical information leading to the agency's recent 34% upward revision of oil and gas methane emissions..

This latest research published earlier this week indicated that we have also been consistently underestimating oil and gas methane emissions on a global scale as well. This research also adds an important data set to an ongoing scientific debate on the causes of the almost decade-long increase in atmospheric methane concentrations.  Resolving the competing explanations for this increase will t...