{"id":39983,"date":"2024-03-06T04:32:18","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T23:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=39983"},"modified":"2025-04-24T21:34:35","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T16:04:35","slug":"methane-sat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/methane-sat\/","title":{"rendered":"MethaneSAT &#8211; a satellite which will \u2018name and shame\u2019 methane emitters"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in news?<\/li>\n<li>Need to track and measure methane emissions<\/li>\n<li>What is MethaneSAT?<\/li>\n<li>What is the significance of MethaneSAT?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in news?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>MethaneSAT \u2014 a satellite which will track and measure methane emissions at a global scale \u2014 was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon9 rocket from California.<\/li>\n<li>It is crucial to cut methane emissions. And the main culprit: fossil fuel operations, which account for about 40 per cent of all human-caused methane emissions.<\/li>\n<li>The objective of MethaneSAT is to help achieve this goal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Need to track and measure methane emissions<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Greenhouse effect\n<ul>\n<li>Methane is an invisible but strong greenhouse gas, and the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide.<\/li>\n<li>It is responsible for <u>30 per cent of global heating<\/u> since the Industrial Revolution.<\/li>\n<li>According to the United Nations Environment Programme, over a period of 20 years, <u>methane is 80 times more potent at warming than carbon dioxide<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Responsible for pre-mature deaths\n<ul>\n<li>The gas also contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone \u2014 a colourless and highly irritating gas that forms just above the Earth\u2019s surface.<\/li>\n<li>According to a 2022 report, exposure to ground-level ozone could be contributing to one million premature deaths every year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>MethaneSAT<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>About\n<ul>\n<li>Essentially, MethaneSAT will orbit the Earth 15 times a day, monitoring the oil and gas sector.<\/li>\n<li>It will create a large amount of data, which will tell how much methane is coming from where, who\u2019s responsible, and are those emissions going up or down over time.<\/li>\n<li>The data collected by MethaneSAT will be made public for free in near real-time.<\/li>\n<li>This will allow stakeholders and regulators to take action to reduce methane emissions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Institutions involved in the development\n<ul>\n<li>The entity behind MethaneSAT is the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) \u2014 a US-based nonprofit environmental advocacy group.<\/li>\n<li>To develop the satellite, EDF partnered with Harvard University, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and the New Zealand Space Agency.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Features\n<ul>\n<li>Fills the critical gaps in existing monitoring systems\n<ul>\n<li>While some satellites can provide high-resolution data, they can only scan specific, pre-targeted sites.<\/li>\n<li>Others can examine larger areas and detect large emitting events, but cannot scan smaller sources that account for the majority of emissions in many.<\/li>\n<li>Due to this discrepancy, according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) report, global methane emissions are about 70 per cent higher than levels reported by national governments.<\/li>\n<li>MethaneSAT is expected to fix the issue.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Equipped with a high-resolution sensors\n<ul>\n<li>Equipped with a high-resolution infrared sensor and a spectrometer, the satellite will fill critical data gaps.<\/li>\n<li>It can track differences in methane concentrations as small as three parts per billion in the atmosphere.<\/li>\n<li>This enables it to pick up smaller emissions sources than the previous satellites.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Wide-camera view to identify super-emitters\n<ul>\n<li>MethaneSAT also has a wide-camera view \u2014 of about 200 km by 200 km \u2014 allowing it to identify larger emitters so-called super emitters.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Use of AI\n<ul>\n<li>The collected data will be analysed using cloud-computing and AI technology developed by Google \u2014 the company is a mission partner.<\/li>\n<li>The data will be made public through Google\u2019s Earth Engine platform.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Significance of MethaneSAT<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>To fulfil the objectives of the Global Methane Pledge 2021\n<ul>\n<li>More than 150 countries signed the <u>Global Methane Pledge in 2021, to cut their collective methane emissions by at least 30 per cent from 2020 levels by 2030<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>At last year\u2019s COP, more than 50 companies committed to virtually eliminating methane emissions and routine flaring.<\/li>\n<li>MethaneSAT will help them meet these targets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>To promote transparency\n<ul>\n<li>The satellite will also usher in a new era of transparency.<\/li>\n<li>Its publicly available data, which can be accessed by anyone in the world, will keep track of methane commitments made by governments and corporations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1)\u00a0What is the Global Methane Pledge (GMP)?<\/h3>\n<p>The Global Methane Pledge (GMP) is a voluntary framework that aims to reduce methane emissions by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030. The pledge was announced at COP26 in November 2021 and is led by the European Union and the United States.<\/p>\n<h3>Q2) What is the greenhouse effect?<\/h3>\n<p>The greenhouse effect is a natural process that warms the Earth by trapping heat from the sun that would otherwise escape into space. The process is named after the way it works similarly to a greenhouse, which can grow plants year-round even when it&#8217;s too cold outside.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-climate\/methanesat-satellite-methane-emmissions-9197297\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Meet MethaneSAT, a satellite which will \u2018name and shame\u2019 methane emitters<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Methane is the second largest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":39984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}