Shafaqna English- Google and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have developed an AI model that can detect methane emissions globally from space, identifying far more methane plumes than human experts.
Published in PNAS, the new model, MAPL-EMIT, analyzes data from NASA’s EMIT instrument and was trained on 3.6 million physics-simulated methane plumes.
The system detected 50% more methane plumes than human experts, identifying more than 23,000 additional plumes worldwide. It also detected 24 of the 25 largest-emitting landfills, demonstrating its ability to find major sources across complex and noisy landscapes.
Methane is a particularly powerful greenhouse gas, with roughly 30 times the warming potential of CO₂ over 100 years. By rapidly locating emission sources, MAPL-EMIT could help governments, researchers and industry operators target methane reductions more efficiently.
Google has also released the global plume database, visualization tools, open-source models and inference software, allowing researchers and policymakers to use the technology for further monitoring and climate action.
Source: Google