Extended Data Fig. 2: Prevailing explanation for the absence of plume detections in TROPOMI data.
From: Global satellite survey reveals uncertainty in landfill methane emissions
Spatial distribution of all 130 urban areas observed by GHGSat. Urban areas that show methane emission plumes detected in TROPOMI data are depicted in black. Colored urban areas do not show methane emission plumes detected in TROPOMI data, and their color depicts the prevailing explanation of why that is the case. Overall, we find that the absence of a detected plume can be explained by observational-coverage-related issues for 62 urban areas. Expected urban-scale methane emissions lower than the TROPOMI plume detection threshold explain the absence of plume detections for 19 urban areas and, finally, strong TROPOMI methane column correlation with surface reflectance features hampering plume detection explains the absence of plume detections for 3 urban areas.
