PhD ceremony: Quantifying local to regional emissions of methane using UAV-based atmospheric concentration measurements | Truls Andersen

The uncertainty in methane (CH₄) emissions that go into the global methane cycle is significant, and accurate atmospheric measurements and quantification of CH₄ is of vital importance to reduce this uncertainty. This thesis explores the use of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in combination with a high accuracy methane sampling tool to measure and quantify CH₄ emissions.

First, a suitable instrument capable of accurate measurements of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is developed and tested. Second, using this newly developed instrumentation, a technique for quantifying methane emissions from a point source is developed. Finally, this instrumentation and technique is used to sample and quantify the regional CH₄ emissions from a large industrial coal mining region. The results coming from this thesis has helped progress the use of mobile unmanned aerial vehicles for atmospheric trace gas research, and shows that quantification techniques using UAVs can be a powerful tool to make accurate measurements of CH₄ and other trace gases, and further help in lowering the overall uncertainty on the atmospheric carbon cycle.

Dissertation: http://hdl.handle.net/(...)62-9798-439d775a1014