Alan Fried, Senior Research Associate (INSTAAR & Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, CU Boulder)

Wednesday June 14 at 7:00 pm (no registration needed)
Location: Megaron building

This weekly summer seminar at the Mountain Research Station is free and open to the public. 

The dinner at 6:00 pm has been cancelled (not enough registrants).

Please arrive a little before 7:00 pm to park and get to the dining hall.

You will be joining a fun mix of MRS scientists, students who are taking courses, and members of the public.

Description: In 2021, scientists at INSTAAR in collaboration with the University of Maryland, TOFWERK USA, and NOAA, carried out airborne measurements over the Denver-Julesburg Basin (DJB) oil and gas fields of Weld and Larimer Counties. A fully instrumented Cessna aircraft acquired measurements of various atmospheric gases, including methane and ethane. The present talk will give an overview of this campaign, the approach employed in determining methane and ethane emission rates, and a comparison with the results from other studies, focusing on emission rate trends with time. Since methane is a major Greenhouse gas and ethane is a precursor to ozone and other air pollutants, quantifying these emission rates from DJB oil and natural gas operations (O&NG) and their trends with time is an area of active interest to both the public and the Colorado Department of Health and the Environment. This talk will conclude with a discussion of the challenges in apportioning the measured methane emission rates into its two major sources: O&NG operations and animal feeding operations. Since both sources are located in close proximity, particularly over the Greeley, CO area, this source attribution is important when considering methane growth rates.

See the full schedule for the 2023 Summer Weekly Seminar Series >