Category: Aardwetenschappen

This year, NWO awards one of its two Stevin Prizes to Prof. Ilse Aben (SRON/VU) for the societal impact she has achieved with the Dutch space instrument TROPOMI. At SRON, Aben leads the TROPOMI team that weekly publishes a world map of major methane leaks. These leaks have a combined climate impact twice as large as the total greenhouse gas emissions of The Netherlands. Projects by the United Nations and the European Union, among others, use this data to close the leaks through diplomatic channels. The Stevin Prize is the highest Dutch award for the application of knowledge for society and amounts to 1.5 million euros for research.

NWO has awarded SRON researcher Hailing Jia an Open Competition ENW-M1 grant to better map the interaction between clouds and aerosols. The grant enables Hailing to hire a PhD student.

SRON scientists discover dozens of methane plumes every week using the Dutch space instrument TROPOMI. To locate their sources, they then zoom in with other satellites. However, brief methane releases have typically ended before those satellites arrive at the scene. The team has now developed a new method that is fast enough to catch the largest of such emissions. Publication in Geophysical Research Letters.

SRON—as part of the European CAMS service—and GHGSat have detected a substantial methane emission from Mount Fentale, an active volcano in Ethiopia. The emission, estimated at 58 metric tonnes per hour, was observed on January 31 through a “tip and cue” approach between Europe’s Copernicus program’s Sentinel-5P TROPOMI satellite instrument and GHGSAT’s satellite constellation, coordinated by SRON and GHGSAT.

On February 8^th 2024, NASA launched its PACE climate satellite with onboard the Dutch aerosol instrument SPEXone. A full year of observations now yields a world map of aerosols. It shows the distribution of fine and coarse aerosols and of particles that reflect or absorb sunlight. The latter respectively have cooling and warming effects on the climate. SPEXone was built by SRON and Airbus Netherlands, with support from TNO.

The Dutch TROPOMI space instrument creates daily global maps of carbon monoxide (CO) in the atmosphere. Researchers from SRON and TNO have now measured CO emissions over a full year from the 21 largest European steel plants, including Tata Steel.

In oktober 2024 kwamen wetenschappers uit Nederland en de Verenigde Staten bijeen op de Nederlandse ambassade in Washington om hun expertise te delen over broeikasgassen, reactieve gassen, wolken en aerosolen. Deze thema’s zijn belangrijk voor klimaatonderzoek. In een whitepaper formuleren ze acties die  antwoord gaan geven op urgente klimaatvragen.

Since its launch in 2017, the Dutch TROPOMI space instrument has been constantly impacted by cosmic rays. An analysis of the onboard short-wave infrared detector, tasked with detecting methane and carbon monoxide, shows that 98.7% of its pixels are still working properly. Spontaneous recovery of pixels contributes to this. Publication in Measurement Science and Technology.

SRON has been selected by the European Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) to provide satellite data analysis for its new monitoring service on methane emissions. CAMS provides atmospheric information to policymakers, businesses and citizens. It delivers real-time European air quality analyses and forecasts as well as observation-based emission estimates.

The cooling effect of aerosols adds an uncertainty of almost one degree in climate models. Sulfate aerosols are one of the most impactful types. An analysis of several widely-used models now concludes that their predications on the creation of sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere differ almost as much as a factor of two. The PACE satellite will help to reveal which models are most accurate. Publication in Journal of Geophysical Research. 

On April 24th 2024, Aaldert van Amerongen (head of SRON Earth Observation) will participate in a panel discussion on methane emissions at the 26th World Energy Congress in Rotterdam. The Dutch climate envoy His Royal Highness Prince Jaime de Bourbon de Parme also takes part. The session is titled: “Net zero methane by 2030: a new outlook for oil and gas?””

Spanish King Felipe and Dutch King Willem-Alexander visited ESA’s test center ESTEC in Noordwijk on Thursday, April 18. They took a tour around the cleanrooms and were informed about the Dutch-Spanish cooperation in the field of methane research. On behalf of SRON, Ilse Aben and Mari Martinez Velarte explained how the Dutch satellite instrument TROPOMI scans the entire earth every day for large methane plumes.

NASA’s PACE climate satellite, with onboard the Dutch instrument SPEXone, has reached the First Light milestone. The world now has access to satellite images distinguishing types and sizes of aerosols. SPEXone also measures the extent to which aerosols absorb and reflect sunlight. This allows scientists to reduce uncertainties in climate models. SPEXone was built by SRON and Airbus Netherlands B.V., with support from TNO.

SRON scientists Otto Hasekamp and Bastiaan van Diedenhoven have both received an NWO-GO grant for research on aerosols in the Earth’s atmosphere. They will use data from NASA’s PACE climate satellite, that was launched on February 8^th 2024 including the Dutch aerosol instrument SPEXone onboard.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has given the green light for the realization of the Dutch TANGO satellites. TANGO measures greenhouse gas emissions at source level from power plants, coal mines, landfills and factories, among others. Its Dutch predecessor TROPOMI has already been monitoring the greenhouse gas methane worldwide since 2017 and can map about 5% of emission sources. Its successor TANGO will be able to monitor sources responsible for around 75% global emissions of methane. Moreover, TANGO measures emissions of CO2, the gas that accounts for the largest output of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. The satellites are being developed by the Dutch parties ISISPACE, TNO, SRON and KNMI. TANGO is expected to be ready for launch from early 2027.

NASA’s climate satellite PACE was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral in the early morning of February 8^th 2024. PACE will perform measurements on aerosols, plankton and ocean color. Aerosols are a large unknown factor in climate models. The Dutch instrument SPEXone will change this through measurements of aerosols in the atmosphere. SPEXone was built by SRON and Airbus Netherlands B.V., with support from TNO.

The Netherlands is now able to make a big impact on the inventory of the greenhouse gas methane released into the atmosphere by humans. And consequently, in the understanding of where we can most rapidly address this worldwide. Atmospheric scientist Jochen Landgraf, principal investigator for the TANGO mission, knows what we need to do, why now is the time, and why especially the Netherlands should do it now.

At COP28 in Dubai, countries are looking to reach new agreements to reduce emissions. This requires the identification of emission sources. The Netherlands has extensive experience in emission monitoring from space. Researchers from SRON, KNMI, TNO and TU Delft see huge methane plumes over landfills and fossil fuel installations with their current space instrument TROPOMI. They are now jointly advocating for the Netherlands to take a leading role in identifying more of this low-hanging fruit worldwide. ‘We have all the necessary knowledge. The Netherlands has a unique opportunity to lead the world in monitoring methane, but that requires long-term commitment.’

The Dutch space instrument TROPOMI provides daily global methane concentration maps. Methane is responsible for about a quarter of present-day global warming. Some individual sources leak large amounts of methane, making them the low-hanging fruit in the fight against climate change. SRON researchers now successfully detect those methane plumes using machine learning (AI). The identified methane super-emitters combined have a larger climate impact than all Dutch greenhouse gas emissions.

Carbon monoxide (CO) is released during incomplete combustion and plays an important role in air pollution. It can also serve as a tracer for CO₂, which is difficult to measure directly. Researchers from SRON and TNO are now using satellite data to map local CO emissions from African cities. These turn out to differ from commonly used emission inventories. It means that combustion efficiency estimates should be adjusted.

SRON is joining forces with Harvard University, who have designed a computing tool for estimating regional methane emissions from TROPOMI data, called the Integrated Methane Inversion (IMI). By automating the process of converting TROPOMI’s observations of methane concentrations into emission values, IMI helps scientists and stakeholders such as national monitoring agencies worldwide to study global methane emissions.

Limiting global warming to 1.5 °C requires steep reductions in methane emissions. This powerful greenhouse gas is responsible for a quarter of human-induced global warming and provides a short-term lever on climate change because it remains in the atmosphere for much less time than CO₂. Knowing where the largest methane emissions occur is key to successful mitigation.

Methane is almost thirty times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO₂. SRON researchers therefore scan the entire globe for large methane leaks. A landfill in Buenos Aires turns out to emit tens of tons of methane per hour, comparable to the climate impact of one and a half million cars. They also detect large emissions from landfills in India and Pakistan, identifying new low-hanging fruit in the battle against climate change. Publication on August 10th in Science Advances. 

Over the past few weeks, a group of engineers from SRON, Airbus Netherlands and NASA has been working on installing the Dutch aerosol instrument SPEXone on NASA’s PACE satellite. PACE will conduct measurements on oceans and aerosols to study for example the influence of particulates on the climate. It is scheduled for launch in 2024. On June 23 the last screw is tightened, which officially completes the integration.

Berend Schuit has won the Heinz Stoewer Space Award for his graduation project on methane plumes that he carried out as a student at SRON. The Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft presents this award annually to the student whose master’s thesis scored highly in terms of quality and social impact. Schuit built a machine-learning model that automatically identifies methane plumes from data collected by the Dutch space instrument TROPOMI..

Using satellite data – including data from the Dutch TROPOMI satellite instrument – a team of climate researches have succeeded in identifying large methane leaks on the west coast of Turkmenistan. In most cases, the emissions originate from inactive flares venting large quantities of methane into the atmosphere.

A Dutch group of scientists has used space instrument TROPOMI to calculate methane emissions from six Australian coal mines. Together these account for 7% of the national coal production, but turn out to emit around 55% of what Australia reports for their total coal mining methane emissions.

The Australian summer of 2019-2020, also known as the ‘Black Summer’, was characterized by a series of devastating wildfires. Researchers from VU Amsterdam, SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and KNMI have determined the amount of CO₂ released by these fires using satellite data. The wildfires produced nearly twice as much CO2 as Australia’s annual fossil fuel consumption. Publication in Nature.

An international team of scientists, including Bram Maasakkers (SRON) and Ilse Aben (SRON/VU), has identified 37 point sources in the Permian Basin that each emit over 500 kg of methane per hour. The Permian Basin is a region in Texas and New Mexico that accounts for almost half of the methane emissions of reported emissions from all US oil and gas extraction areas combined. Publication in Science Advances.

On February 22th a final inspection took place of the Dutch space instrument SPEXone, in the presence of Dutch science minister Van Engelshoven (OCW) and NASA. Soon after the event the instrument will be transported to NASA. From 2023 onwards SPEXone will fly on NASA’s PACE mission, which will help researchers resolve climate issues. SPEXone is specifically developed to unravel the impact of areosols on the climate.

Geological methane sources can be either anthropogenic or natural, such as the oil industry or mud volcanoes. Ground-based measurements combined with TROPOMI observations on the Javanese mud volcano Lusi now show that the natural geological emissions are probably higher than expected. It would mean that we have to attribute a smaller share to man-made geological sources. On the other hand, other human activities should be held accountable for higher emissions, such as rice fields and livestock farming. Publication in Nature’s Scientific Reports.

An American aircraft campaign has found that Mexico’s onshore methane emissions are 10 times higher than earlier estimates, while offshore rig emissions are 10 times lower than earlier estimates. SRON scientists have been able to verify the aircraft’s onshore observations using data from the Tropomi instrument, which does not yet provide methane data over sea. The new study, published today in Environmental Research Letters, leads to a better understanding of the patterns and places where oil and gas methane emissions occur in Mexico. This is critical to taking efficient mitigation measures.

A consortium of ISISpace, TNO, KNMI and SRON has presented their proposal for the TANGO space mission during the final selection round for ESA’s first Scout mission. TANGO is one of four remaining candidates and will zoom in on concentrations of greenhouse gases in high resolution. It is aimed to complement the larger European climate satellites such as CO2M and Sentinel-5(p), which scan the atmosphere with a wider field of view. The final selection is expected in November.

SRON’s aerosol instrument SPEX airborne is spreading its wings again. In early October it will start a series of measurement flights across Europe onboard a Falcon-20 research aircraft. SPEX airborne will measure aerosols in the atmosphere—tiny dust particles that can disrupt measurements of the greenhouse gas CO₂. In time, SPEX is intended to go into space as part of the European SCARBO mission.