In a study just released by Eric Kort of the University of Michigan, he reports that the Four Corners area is the major U.S. hot spot for methane emissions in this map showing how much emissions varied from average background concentrations from 2003-2009. One small hot spot in the U.S. Southwest is responsible for producing the largest concentration of the greenhouse gas methane ever observed over the United States, more than triple the standard ground-based estimate - according to a new study of satellite data by scientists at NASA and the University of Michigan. Methane is very efficient at trapping heat in the atmosphere and, like carbon dioxide, it contributes to global warming.
The hot spot, near the Four Corners intersection of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah, covers only about 2,500 square miles (6,500 square kilometers), or half the size of Connecticut. In each of the seven years studied from 2003-2009, the area released about 0.59 million metric tons of methane into the atmosphere. This is almost 3.5 times the estimate for the same area in the European Union widely used Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research. Dr Kort noted that the study period predates the widespread use of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, near the hot spot. This indicates the methane emissions should not be attributed to fracking but instead to leaks in natural-gas production and processing equipment in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico, which is the most active coal-bed methane production area in the U.S. Natural gas is 95-98 percent methane. Methane is colorless and odorless, making leaks hard to detect without scientific instruments.
The results are indicative that emissions from established fossil-fuel harvesting techniques are greater than inventoried. There has been much attention on high-volume hydraulic fracturing, but we need to consider the industry as a whole, like coal-bed methane production.
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