Earth Science
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 15-Dec-2025 17:11 ET (15-Dec-2025 22:11 GMT/UTC)
High-resolution satellite observations reveal facility-level methane emissions worldwide
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)Peer-Reviewed Publication
High-resolution data from the GHGSat satellite constellation reveal facility-level methane emissions at thousands of individual sites worldwide, according to a new study. The findings provide a far more detailed picture of methane emissions from the energy sector, offering new insights for global inventories and mitigation strategies. Methane is among the most powerful drivers of atmospheric warming a after carbon dioxide, and much of it comes from human activities – often from concentrated “point sources” such as individual oil, gas, and coal facilities. Methane emissions from these industries are generally estimated in two ways: bottom-up inventories and top-down atmospheric measurements. Bottom-up methods, based on limited ground measurements or assumptions about industrial activity, can miss unexpected or short-lived leaks. On the other hand, top-down approaches provide more direct data, but typically lack the resolution or frequency needed to identify individual emission sources. Together, these limitations highlight the need for improved tools that capture both detailed and comprehensive emissions information.
According to Dylan Jervis and colleagues, the GHGsat satellite network offers an ideal combination of high spatial resolution, strong sensitivity, and broad global coverage to better understand where methane is released and how those emissions change over time. Using global GHGSat observations from 2023, Jervis et al. grouped repeated methane plume detections from the same locations into time series and calculated how frequently each site emits above the satellites’ detection limit. They then used these patterns to estimate yearly average emissions for 3,114 oil, gas, and coal facilities worldwide, which totaled roughly 8.3 million tons per year of methane released. They found that oil and gas emissions fluctuate much more than coal emissions, meaning they require many more satellite observations to detect and quantify, which the authors argue is an important consideration for future monitoring rules. When these high-resolution estimates were compared with other major global inventories and lower-resolution satellite datasets, coal emissions matched well at the country level, while oil and gas emissions showed only moderate agreement and weak correlation at finer scales. The authors note that these differences highlight the importance of high-resolution satellites for identifying large, variable emitters that broader inventories overlook or misrepresent.
- Journal
- Science
Scientists uncover how Earth’s mantle locked away vast water in early magma ocean
Chinese Academy of Sciences HeadquartersPeer-Reviewed Publication
Recently, a team of researchers led by Prof. DU Zhixue from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GIGCAS) has discovered that substantial amounts of water could have been efficiently "locked away" deep within the mantle as it crystallized from a molten state.
- Journal
- Science
SETI Institute announces Adrien Segal as recipient of the Planetary Futures Residency
SETI InstituteGrant and Award Announcement
The SETI Institute’s Artist in Residency (AIR) program announced that American artist Adrien Segal is the recipient of the Planetary Futures Public Art Residency. This research-creation residency invites the artist to collaborate with scientists whose work advances planetary science, with a focus on climate research. By connecting artistic practice with scientific discovery, the residency aims to foster dialogue, raise awareness, and inspire collective action, emphasizing how the study of other planets can provide valuable perspectives to better understand and address climate-related issues here on Earth. This two-year residency includes a $30,000 stipend.
Based in Oakland, CA, Adrien Segal is an internationally exhibited artist with work featured in books, academic journals and galleries around the world. She has participated in numerous Artist Residencies across the US, Canada, and Europe, and has work in permanent collections including the City of Homer, Alaska, the Museum of Art in Wood in Philadelphia, and the National Academy of Science in Washington, D.C. In 2022, Segal was a US-UK Fulbright Scholar with the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee in Scotland. Past appointments include the Latham Fellowship at IIT Institute of Design in Chicago, a Visiting Artist at San Diego State University, Benchspace Cork in Ireland, and the University of Lethbridge in Canada.
"I'm excited to welcome Adrien into the SETI Institute's Artist in Residence program," said Bettina Forget, SETI AIR Program Director. "She weaves together science, landscape, data, and materiality to create cross-disciplinary sculptural works that evoke deep emotional responses and a unique sense of place. I look forward to working with Adrien as she starts diving into the research at the SETI Institute."
Risk to Amazon rainforest from land use and climate change
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität MünchenPeer-Reviewed Publication
A new LMU study estimates that land use changes in conjunction with climate change could lead to the loss of up to 38 percent of the Amazon rainforest by the end of the 21st century.
- Journal
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
China's urban forests: Growing carbon pool
Science China PressPeer-Reviewed Publication
In a paper published in Science Bulletin, a Chinese team of scientists estimated carbon sequestration rates of urban forests in China from 1995 to 2060 under three climate scenarios.
- Journal
- Science Bulletin
Landing into the source: first insights into the hidden contamination of airports
KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.Peer-Reviewed Publication
- Journal
- Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology
- Funder
- National Recovery and Resilience Plan, Next Generation EU- “GRINS - Growing Resilient, INclusive and Sustainable” project, Centre for Trace Analysis (CeTrA) of Ca’ Foscari University through the project