Measuring Greenhouse-Gas Emissions from a Synthetic Tracer Source

This paper describes a controlled tracer-release experiment in which methane was released from a synthetic source at known rates. An open-path Fourier transform infrared (OP-FTIR) spectroscopy system was used to measure line-averaged methane concentrations downwind of the source. A Lagrangian stochastic (LS) dispersion model was employed to infer emission rates from downwind gas concentrations. The main purpose of our study was to investigate the ability of our open-path FTIR system combined with the LS dispersion model to accurately measure greenhouse gas emissions. In our study, the average ratio of the estimated emissions to actual release rates Q(LS)/Q for CH4 was about 0.86 (sigma(QLS/Q) = 0.2, n = 6) and 0.84 (sigma(QLS/Q) = 0.22, n = 3) after data fi ltering for a 15- and a 30- min period, respectively. Although there is a limited amount of data in this experiment, the results demonstrate the potential of the measurement system for accurate quantifi cation of greenhouse gas emissions.