The United States requires accurate information to underpin current emissions inventories for air pollutants and greenhouse gases, voluntary carbon markets and credits, and the efficacy of mitigation technologies. The United States currently produces more oil and natural gas than at any time in its history, and more than any other country. Crude oil and natural gas exports reached record highs in 2023, with substantial growth in liquified natural gas (LNG). U.S. companies are participants in international methane reporting programs based on measurement frameworks to improve the accuracy and transparency of global methane emission estimates. Recently enacted requirements for reporting and mitigation of methane intensity in overseas natural gas markets has the potential to affect the size and value of U.S. exports (Talus et al., 2024). Accurate, independently verified methane inventories support greenhouse gas reduction goals, and economic growth and competitiveness. Leaked methane that is not captured and sold results in a direct economic loss to operators. Oil and gas methane intensity, defined as methane emitted per united methane or energy equivalent produced, has been declining for more than a decade.
Urban methane emissions represent approximately 9% of the U.S. total and are declining (Karion et al., 2023). Long term decreases in primary pollutants, such as NO2 from fossil fuel combustion, have led to decreases in urban secondary pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter (Fleming et al., 2018; Skyllakou et al., 2021), but with uneven trends in different locations. Many U.S. regions continue to exceed air quality standards, resulting in more than 100,000 excess deaths and nearly $1 trillion in economic damages annually (Goodkind et al., 2019). The U.S. has recently invested in state-of-the-art geostationary satellite measurements for air quality that will serve as the forerunner for NOAA's GeoXO atmospheric composition program. One of the overarching goals of the GeoXO mission is to serve communities with near real time information so preventative measures are place for positive health outcomes.
The NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) has committed to organizing its research around societal challenges that include Confronting Challenges from our Changing Climate and Sustaining a Healthy Environment and Economy. To address these societal challenges, NOAA OAR and NESDIS will lead a series of airborne campaigns in 2024–2026 to provide comprehensive and quantitative top-down emissions data for methane and major air pollutants from a series of urban areas and from the oil and gas sector at basin scale and selected facility scale. NOAA surveyed a large majority of U.S. oil and gas production regions in a series of campaigns in 2013, 2014 and 2015 in work that has contributed to a comprehensive evaluation of onshore oil and gas methane emissions (Alvarez et al., 2018; Peischl et al., 2018). Oil and gas production, methane detection technologies, national emissions targets, emissions controls and methane intensity have all evolved markedly since that time. Newer and more comprehensive surveys are critically needed.
OAR and NESDIS intend to execute this strategy in collaboration with airborne, remote sensing and ground-based assets from NOAA and partner agencies to leverage an integrated, tiered observing system. The NOAA strategy has two main deliverables. (1) Actionable information to support state and local strategies to improve regional air quality. Airborne and satellite-based observations will be integrated and evaluated to achieve these objectives. (2) A quantitative assessment of methane and other emissions from a significant fraction of oil and gas production regions and selected urban testbeds. Additional sources such as agriculture, landfills, coal mining and wetlands will be specifically targeted in the course of these surveys. One purpose of this white paper is to foster community and partner engagement.
The envisioned activities are based on current programs and conditional on the availability of resources. Participating OAR laboratories and programs include the Chemical Sciences Laboratory (CSL), the Air Resources Laboratory (ARL), the Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML) and the Atmospheric Chemistry Carbon Cycle and Climate Program (AC4) of the Climate Program Office (CPO). Participating NESDIS Programs include the Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) and the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). OAR and NESDIS have established and will seek further collaboration with other NOAA line offices (NWS), federal agencies (NIST, NASA, DOE, EPA, DOI), academic partners, and stakeholders (state and tribal agencies, the oil and gas industry, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private sector entities and data providers). NOAA NESDIS and NASA support spaceborne and airborne remote sensing of greenhouse gass, and NOAA OAR, NIST and DOE support ground-based greenhouse gas networks. EPA, NOAA and NIST compile activity-based inventories. State agencies in Colorado and Utah have directly supported ongoing AiRMAPS work, and collaborations are developing with states in the mid-Atlantic region for 2025 (Maryland, Pennsylvania) and the south-central U.S. for 2026 (Texas, New Mexico). Discussions are ongoing with other states. NOAA airborne surveys and satellite observations directly meet the needs of these stakeholders and further link together the observing system components from different federal agencies and private sector data providers, evaluate their accuracy and completeness and support the development of more accurate emissions inventories.
For further information, download the AiRMAPS Summary
Reference: Alvarez, R.A., D. Zavala-Araiza, D.R. Lyon, D.T. Allen, Z.R. Barkley, A.R. Brandt, K.J. Davis, S.C. Herndon, D.J. Jacob, A. Karion, E.A. Kort, B.K. Lamb, T. Lauvaux, J.D. Maasakkers, A.J. Marchese, M. Omara, S.W. Pacala, J. Peischl, A.L. Robinson, P.B. Shepson, C. Sweeney, A. Townsend-Small, S.C. Wofsy, and S.P. Hamburg, Assessment of methane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas supply chain, Science, doi:10.1126/science.aar7204, 2018.
Reference: Fleming, Z. L., Doherty, R. M., von Schneidemesser, E., Malley, C. S., Cooper, O. R., Pinto, J. P., Colette, A., Xu, X., Simpson, D., Schultz, M. G., Lefohn, A. S., Hamad, S., Moolla, R., Solberg, S., and Feng, Z., Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report: Present-day ozone distribution and trends relevant to human health, Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, doi:10.1525/elementa.273, 2018.
Reference: Goodkind, A. L., Tessum, C. W., Coggins, J. S., Hill, J. D., and Marshall, J. D., Fine-scale damage estimates of particulate matter air pollution reveal opportunities for location-specific mitigation of emissions, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doi:10.1073/pnas.1816102116, 2019.
Reference: Karion, A., Ghosh, S., Lopez-Coto, I., Mueller, K., Gourdji, S., Pitt, J., and Whetstone, J., Methane emissions show recent decline but strong seasonality in two US northeastern cities, Environmental Science & Technology, doi:10.1021/acs.est.3c05050, 2023.
Reference: Lu, X., Jacob, D. J., Zhang, Y., Shen, L., Sulprizio, M. P., Maasakkers, J. D., Varon, D. J., Qu, Z., Chen, Z., Hmiel, B., Parker, R. J., Boesch, H., Wang, H., He, C., and Fan, S., Observation-derived 2010-2019 trends in methane emissions and intensities from US oil and gas fields tied to activity metrics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doi:10.1073/pnas.2217900120, 2023.
Reference: Peischl, J., S.J. Eilerman, J.A. Neuman, K.C. Aikin, J. de Gouw, J.B. Gilman, S.C. Herndon, R. Nadkarni, M. Trainer, C. Warneke, and T.B. Ryerson, Quantifying methane and ethane emissions to the atmosphere from central and western U.S. oil and natural gas production regions, Journal of Geophysical Research, doi:10.1029/2018JD028622, 2018.
Reference: Skyllakou, K., Rivera, P. G., Dinkelacker, B., Karnezi, E., Kioutsioukis, I., Hernandez, C., Adams, P. J., and Pandis, S. N., Changes in PM2.5 concentrations and their sources in the US from 1990 to 2010, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, doi:10.5194/acp-21-17115-2021, 2021.
Reference: Talus, K., Steck, G., and Atkin, J., EU Methane Regulation and its impact on LNG imports, The Journal of World Energy Law & Business, doi:10.1093/jwelb/jwae022, 2024.