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Methane emissions due to accidents in the oil and natural gas sector are very challenging tomonitor, and hence are seldomconsidered in emission inventories and reporting. One of the main reasons is the lack of measurements during such events. Here we report the detection of large methane emissions from a gas well blowout in Ohio during February to March 2018 in the total column methane measurements from the spaceborne Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI). From these data, we derive a methane emission rate of 120 ± 32 metric tons per hour. This hourly emission rate is twice that of the widely reported Aliso Canyon event in California in 2015. Assuming the detected emission represents the average rate for the 20-d blowout period, we find the total methane emission from the well blowout is comparable to one-quarter of the entire state of Ohio's reported annual oil and natural gas methane emission, or, alternatively, a substantial fraction of the annual anthropogenic methane emissions from several European countries. Our work demonstrates the strength and effectiveness of routine satellite measurements in detecting and quantifying greenhouse gas emission from unpredictable events. In this specific case, the magnitude of a relatively unknown yet extremely large accidental leakage was revealed using measurements of TROPOMI in its routine global survey, providing quantitative assessment of associated methane emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are strong indications from on-ground and airborne measurement campaigns thatmethane (CH4) leakage due to activities by the oil & gas sector may have been significantlyunderestimated. Especially, accidental leakages of CH4 from the oil & gas sector can releaselarge amounts of the gas to the atmosphere within a short period of time. These accidentalemissions are difficult to monitor due to their erratic nature, and administrative and logisticallimitations. A promising means to regularly monitor CH4 emission due to leakages is via aspace-based platform regularly scanning the entire globe. In this study, we use CH4 totalcolumn estimates derived from Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI)measurements, with a 7×7 km2 spatial resolution at nadir and daily global coverage. Wedemonstrate that single sounding accuracy of the TROPOMI data is sufficient to detect andquantify large accidental emissions by reporting on atmospheric measurements of CH4leakage from a gas well blowout in Ohio that took place in February 2018. UsingTROPOMI CH4 measurements and WRF atmospheric tracer transport simulation,we quantify the CH4 emission rate and total release from the blowout accident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]