Product Guide Test
Release Date: Nov 14, 2024 — Version: 1.1.5
Introduction
Carbon Mapper is a non-profit organization developing a global observation system to monitor large-scale, human-caused methane and carbon dioxide emissions. We are supported by a unique coalition of private and public partners, including Planet, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the State of California, the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, and RMI (formerly the Rocky Mountain Institute). This broad coalition brings together the expertise and resources needed to deploy a science-driven, sustained, and impactful decision support system.
Carbon Mapper utilizes a combination of satellites and aircraft to provide daily to weekly observations of emissions from point sources, such as oil and gas facilities, solid waste, coal, and agricultural operations. This data is freely available to the public and serves as a valuable resource for governments, businesses, and organizations seeking to reduce emissions and combat climate change.
The Carbon Mapper open data platform plays a crucial role in making emissions data accessible to all interested parties. Originally developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the platform processes data from a range of satellite and airborne hyperspectral systems, including Planet’s Tanager constellation, which is central to Carbon Mapper’s vision of a global observation system. It also integrates data from NASA’s EMIT sensor, airborne sources like NASA’s AVIRIS-NG, AVIRIS-3, and Arizona State University’s Global Airborne Observatory.
In addition to methane, Carbon Mapper is also capable of tracking carbon dioxide emissions. The system has a CO2 detection limit sufficient to track 90% of the world's coal power plant emitters, most refineries, and large gas power plants.
The Carbon Mapper global observing system and open data platform are powerful tools for understanding and mitigating emissions. The data is freely accessible at https://data.carbonmapper.org for non-commercial research and development purposes.
Purpose
This document aims to provide an overview of the products and access mechanisms that make up the Carbon Mapper open data platform. A detailed description of each product is included below, along with uses, release latency, data format, and data access. All products defined in this document are derived from calibrated, non-orthorectified radiances. More complete information on the retrieval algorithms underlying these products will be found in forthcoming Carbon Mapper Algorithm Theoretical Basis Documents (ATBDs).
Definitions
Definitions
Flux | A mass of methane per unit time, per unit area, independent of sources. |
Emission rate (kg/hr) | A mass of methane per unit time for an individual source, a component of total flux. |
Instantaneous emission estimate | The emission rate calculated for a single plume at a specific moment. This value reflects only that individual observation and does not represent the overall emissions from the source. |
Acronyms
PHME | Potentially Harmful Methane Event: An experimental product defined as a methane emissions event whose resulting surface-level concentrations exceed at least one safety or health-based concentration threshold:
|
IME | Integrated Mass Enhancement: The total kilograms of methane in a plume above the background concentration at the time of the image capture |
MDL | Minimum Detection Limit: The lowest emission rate that a technology can detect given certain environmental conditions (e.g., wind speed, ground reflectivity) that has been validated with ground-truth data |
Sensor Information
Carbon Mapper products are derived from various hyperspectral sensors, also known as imaging spectrometers, deployed on satellites and airplanes. These sensors capture light across a broad range of wavelengths, enabling the detection and quantification of atmospheric gases. By integrating data from multiple sensors, Carbon Mapper can generate and release emissions data for numerous plumes across diverse sources and locations, independent of the specific sensor used. This process, known as data fusion, combines and harmonizes data to provide a more comprehensive view of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions over time. The table below outlines the primary sensors used by Carbon Mapper.
| Provider | Platform | Type | Approximate GSD* | Spectral Bands |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Planet Labs, Inc. | Satellite | 30-43m (varies with look angle) | 400-2500 nm 5nm spacing | |
NASA-JPL | EMIT - Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation | Satellite | 50-60m | 381–2493 nm ~7.5 nm spacing |
*Ground sampling distance (GSD) varies with changes in sensor altitude and off-nadir angle. | ||||
| Detailed Tanager-1 Performance Specifications - final operational orbit | |
|---|---|
Swath width | 18.6-24.2 meters (varies with look angle) |
Ground Sample Distance (GSD) | 30-43 meters (varies with look angle) |
CH4/CO2 image product pixel size | 30 meters (resampled for all scenes) |
*3 m/s wind, 35 deg Solar Zenith Angle, 25% albedo, 30 m GSD | |
Data Overview
Although methane and carbon dioxide emissions can originate from natural and human-made sources, the Carbon Mapper mission is focused primarily on identifying and monitoring human-made sources. Natural sources of methane include wetlands, rice paddies, wildfires, tundra ecosystems, and the decomposition of organic matter. Human-made sources include oil and gas production, agricultural activities, coal mining, solid waste landfills, and wastewater treatment facilities.
In addition to methane, Carbon Mapper can detect and measure the vast majority of CO2 point source emissions from electricity generation (power plants), cement production, and other industrial processes.
Carbon Mapper organizes its emissions data into two primary data types: plumes and sources.
- Plumes are an excess mass or concentration of gas in the atmosphere emitted from a specific source. They are the atmospheric manifestation of emission processes occurring across economic sectors.
- Sources are specific geographic locations from which emissions originate. Point sources are a type of source that is associated with a large emission from a concentrated area represented by a specific latitude and longitude.
Although plumes and sources correspond to real-world features, their locations in the data may not always align perfectly with actual infrastructure on the ground. These discrepancies can arise due to the varying accuracy of the underlying imagery and the methods used to determine the precise origin of the plumes.
Satellites and airborne sensors can detect plumes by measuring the amount of sunlight absorbed by gas in the atmosphere. By combining wind speed and direction with observed plume mass and capturing multiple observations over time to understand the frequency of emissions better, scientists can accurately estimate the emission rate of sources, not just plumes. A time-series-based aggregation approach like this results in a more complete global environmental impact of super-emitting infrastructure.
Sources and plumes are derived from aircraft or satellite imagery, captured as individual scenes or continuous 'strips.' These geographic boundaries define imaged areas, providing essential spatial references for data analysis and interpretation of Earth observation information.
Products Overview
Carbon Mapper products are designed to meet the needs of a wide range of users, from researchers and policymakers to industry and the public. They are organized into five levels, each representing a higher degree of processing, ranging from Level 1 raw radiance data to Level 5 advanced analytics. Carbon Mapper products are publicly available for non-commercial use through the Carbon Mapper data portal and APIs. They provide users with access to data, tools, and documentation to help them explore, analyze, and visualize human-caused point source emissions. Please visit our Terms of Use for information on data licensing.
| Data Product | Description |
|---|---|
Level 1B Calibrated radiance | Calibrated and compressed radiance images, including geolocation and observation geometry information, raster-level masks, and other metadata such as scene and valid pixel outlines, clouds, flares, and specular or dark masks. Generated in sensor and ortho space. Carbon Mapper Internal Product Only |
Level 2A Simultaneous RGB imagery | Orthorectified simultaneous RGB (Red, Green, Blue) imagery derived from radiance by correcting for atmospheric effects and processing to top-of-atmosphere reflectance. |
Level 2B Atmospheric retrievals | Orthorectified whole scene methane and carbon dioxide retrievals derived directly from L1B radiance. |
Level 2C Detections | Orthorectified whole scene salience maps, vector data, or tabular files of candidate plume detections. |
Level 3A Preliminary plume images (quick looks) | Orthorectified preliminary maps of individual atmospheric CH4 and CO2 enhancements (segmented plumes). Otherwise known as “Quick Look” products with
|
Level 3A-PHME | Potentially Harmful Methane Event (PHME) products are methane emission events that produce surface-level methane concentrations that exceed at least one safety or health threshold. L3A-PHMEs are experimental products that are identified and released on a best-effort basis. |
Level 3B Fully processed plumes | Orthorectified final maps of individual atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide enhancements (segmented plumes) that pass quality control checks with
|
Level 4A Plume emissions | CH4 and CO2 plume emissions list including:
|
Level 4B Source emissions | Methane and CO2 source emissions list including:
|
Level 5 Analytics | Analytics include aggregated point source emission rates by sector, time, and geography. Future analytics may consist of cumulative distribution functions, emission variances by sector, fusion, and normalization with non-methane or carbon dioxide datasets (e.g., infrastructure, socioeconomic, etc.), histograms, time series, and regional/sectoral up-scaling. |
Python
Request:
Response:
{
"bbox_count": 1,
"total_count": 1,
"limit": 10,
"offset": 0, "items": [
{ "id": "6c8a1b1e-b87a-4385-9419-09f9fbf02fc6",
"plume_id": "emi20240420t101448p07050-A",
"gas": "CH4",
"geometry_json": {
"bbox": null,
"type": "Point",
"coordinates": [
46.036003399263535, 15.586459832180779
]
},
"scene_id": "35cda215-47b6-4e58-9610-8719f25801e0",
"scene_timestamp": "2024-04-20T10:14:48Z",
"instrument": "emi",
"platform": "ISS",
"emission_auto": 3610.5812272297344,
"emission_uncertainty_auto": 377.9456695926191,
"plume_png": "url",
"plume_rgb_png": "url",
"plume_tif": "url",
"con_tif": "url",
"rgb_png": "url",
"plume_bounds": [
45.97519494794988,
15.537058582802368,
46.0475948088854,
15.606800943939408
],
"plume_quality": "good",
"wind_speed_avg_auto": 1.8888888888888886,
"wind_direction_avg_auto": 97.29934710031175,
"collection": "l2c-ch4-v0",
"cmf_type": "mfa",
"sector": "1B2",
"status": "published",
"hide_emission": false,
"published_at": "2024-05-08T22:57:42.324Z"
}
],
"nearby_items": []
}Figure 3: Example request and response from the Carbon Mapper Plumes Annotated endpoint