Fran Reuland presents on EAO's satellite-based methane detection case study at META

The title of her talk was "Initial results for 2025 single-blind controlled release testing of satellite-based methane detection and quantification". 

Abstract: Space-based methods, including passive remote sensing, offer a promising tool for consistent monitoring and detection of large methane sources worldwide. Numerous instruments and algorithmic approaches to methane source detection and quantification are in place and under development; however, very few publicly available ground-truth datasets exist to validate performance, particularly for newer satellite platforms launched in the past three years. We introduce a novel dataset comprising ~290 controlled methane releases conducted under both cooperative (unblinded) and single-blind study designs. The releases, conducted at two U.S. locations between August 2024 and March 2025, coincide with overpasses from 12 satellites and 1 airplane instrument, spanning government, non-profit, and private missions. The dataset includes high-resolution time series of gas flow rates (1s) and meteorological measurements during each release, including multi-height wind speed (5s), wind direction, cloud cover, and sky images (~30s). In addition, we present initial results evaluating the detection and quantification performance of 12 analyzing teams for single-blind releases where the release location was known.