Methane Source Finder: A web-based data portal for exploring methane data

The Methane Source Finder is a web-based data portal developed under NASA’s CMS and ACCESS programs for exploring methane data in the state of California. This open access interactive map allows users to discover, analyze, and download data across a range of spatial scales derived from remote-sensing, surface monitoring, and bottom-up infrastructure information. This includes methane plume images and associated emission estimates derived from the 2016-2018 California Methane Survey using the airborne imaging spectrometer AVIRIS-NG. The fine spatial resolution (typically 3 m) AVIRIS-NG products when combined with the Vista infrastructure database of over 270,000 components statewide permits direct attribution of emissions to individual point source locations. These point source products have benefited from evaluation and feedback from state and local agencies and private sector companies and in some cases were used to directly guide leak detection and repair efforts. Additional data layers at local and regional scales provide context for point source emissions. These include methane flux inversions for the Los Angeles basin derived from surface observations and tracer transport modeling (3 km, 4 day resolution) as well as the CMS US methane gridded inventory (10 km, monthly resolution) over the state of California.