California Methane Plume No. 17 (2020-07-14)

This article is part of the Global Methane Emitters Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor.

Download full dataset

Report an error

Related categories:

Coal mines Oil and gas extraction Oil industry pipelines LNG Terminals

California Methane Plume No. 17 is a methane plume detected by Carbon Mapper's Global Airborne Observatory on 2020-07-14 in California, in the United States. The estimated emissions rate for this plume was 132 ± 65 kg/hr.

Location

The map below shows the approximate location of the source of this plume as reported by analysts at CarbonMapper.

Loading map...

{"type":"SATELLITE","minzoom":false,"maxzoom":false,"types":["ROADMAP","SATELLITE","HYBRID","TERRAIN"],"mappingservice":"googlemaps3","width":"600px","height":"500px","centre":false,"title":"","label":"","icon":"","lines":[],"polygons":[],"circles":[],"rectangles":[],"copycoords":false,"static":false,"visitedicon":"","wmsoverlay":false,"zoom":16,"layers":[],"controls":["pan","zoom","type","scale","streetview","rotate"],"zoomstyle":"DEFAULT","typestyle":"DEFAULT","autoinfowindows":false,"resizable":false,"kmlrezoom":false,"poi":true,"cluster":false,"clustergridsize":60,"clustermaxzoom":20,"clusterzoomonclick":true,"clusteraveragecenter":true,"clusterminsize":2,"imageoverlays":[],"kml":[],"gkml":[],"searchmarkers":"","fullscreen":false,"scrollwheelzoom":false,"locations":[{"text":"","title":"","link":"","lat":35.536492,"lon":-119.07776,"icon":""}]}

Methane Plume Details

Plume Date	Infrastructure Type	Oil and Gas or Coal Extraction Area (Nearest)	Estimated emissions rate	Satellite Provider & ID	Nearest State-Reported Oil and Gas Well Location ID	Nearby California VISTA (2019) assets
2020-07-14	Pumpjack	Poso Creek E & B Oil and Gas Asset	132 ± 65 kg/hr	Carbon Mapper, ang20200714t204231-B		Poso Creek Oil and Gas Field, FLD000344

• Note, because ownership of oil and gas fields, fossil fuel infrastructure, and coal mines can change, the current operator may not have been the operator at the time the plume was released.

Methodology

Global Energy Monitor researchers reviewed each plume visually against Google Earth imagery. For more information on the methodology of attribution, see Global Methane Emitters Tracker and for more details on how individual attributions were made, download the full dataset.

Articles and Resources

For more details on the plume data itself, including details on intermittency, sensor specifications and downloadable raster files, refer to CarbonMapper’s Global Airborne Observatory data portal.

The VISTA-CA methane emitters database provides ownership and operations information on methane emitting infrastructure assets in California, United States.