About AiRMAPS: Strategy

OAR laboratories have developed a strategy for a series of airborne campaigns in 2024–2028 to survey the majority of U.S. oil and gas (O&G) production and selected urban emission testbeds. The NOAA Twin Otter and WP-3D aircraft can be instrumented to measure greenhouse gases (methane, carbon dioxide) and other tracers (nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide). The Twin Otter currently also measures wind velocities with a Doppler lidar, while a similar system is under development for the NOAA WP-3D. The enhanced NOAA WP-3D measurements also include co-emitted pollutants related to O&G and urban emissions (e.g., speciated volatile organic compounds (VOCs), oxidized nitrogen, speciated aerosol composition).

2024 Colorado and Utah. OAR will conduct a series of flights with a NOAA Twin Otter in Colorado's Denver-Julesburg Basin (oil and gas) and Salt Lake City Utah (a city with a long record of urban greenhouse gas measurements) with the airborne Doppler lidar, greenhouse gases and other tracer measurements.
2025 Baltimore and Marcellus Shale. The Marcellus shale is one of the largest U.S. oil and gas basins and Washington, D.C. - Baltimore is a well-established urban greenhouse gas emission testbed. OAR will survey both regions with a NOAA Twin Otter.
2026 Texas and U.S. Southwest. OAR will deploy a comprehensive and detailed chemical payload on a NOAA WP-3D aircraft to survey greenhouse gases and co-emitted pollutants from large oil and gas basins (e.g., the Permian) and major urban areas (e.g., Los Angeles, also an urban testbed). A NOAA Twin Otter will survey a series of oil and gas basins in Texas.
2027 Western U.S. O&G Basins. OAR will deploy a NOAA Twin Otter to additional basins in the western U.S., such as the Bakken, Uinta and San Juan basins in North Dakota, Utah and New Mexico, respectively.
2028 Marcellus Shale and Urban Midwest. OAR will survey urban areas in the upper Midwest (e.g., Chicago) and Northeast (e.g., New York) together with the entire (Northeast and Southwest) Marcellus Shale during wintertime with a NOAA WP-3D.

This series of flights will survey more than 90% of currently estimated O&G methane emissions and a similar fraction of O&G production to achieve the most comprehensive airborne methane and air pollutant assessment to date. Survey emissions estimates will provide critical evaluation of top-down and bottom-up methods to reduce uncertainty and improve reliability. Intercomparison of estimates from remote sensing and surface data will aid in assessing the accuracy of these approaches that provide longer-term monitoring of emission trends.

methane emissions estimates from U.S. O&G production basins — Methane emissions (in metric tons per day per square km) from facilities in U.S. O&G production basins. The percentage of total estimated U.S. O&G methane emissions is shown under each basin name for 2020. The legend and colored circles show proposed AiRMAPS survey regions by year and aircraft (NOAA Twin Otter and WP-3D). Map: Adapted from McDonald 2023.

Reference: McDonald, B.C., J. He, C. Harkins, J. de Gouw, N. Elguindi, R. Duren, J. Gilman, E.A. Kort, C.E. Miller, J. Peischl, G. Pétron, and C. Thompson, A Review of U.S. Oil and Gas Methane and Air Pollutant Emissions , in Environmental Magazine, Air and Waste Management Association, (2023).

cumulative methane emissions and gas production from each region — Cumulative methane emissions (%, bars) and cumulative gas-production (%, dots) for the principal O&G production regions (bottom scale) ordered by year of sampling. The top scale shows the aircraft and survey year in the AiRMAPS proposed schedule.