High-resolution mean North American methane fluxes for 2010-2015 optimized with GOSAT sate

NASA's Carbon Monitoring System provides methane emission estimates for North America from 2010 to 2015. The data is derived from an inversion of the GEOS-Chem model constrained by GOSAT satellite observations. This product aims to support policy and management activities with regional-scale information on carbon sources and sinks.

Use Cases

• Modeling regional atmospheric methane budgets based on satellite-constrained flux estimates.
• Assessing the effectiveness of emission reduction policies based on the high-resolution, multi-year time series.
• Validating ground-based methane measurement networks using the spatially optimized flux data.
• Integrating top-down emission estimates into carbon cycle and climate models.

Strengths

• Data is produced by NASA, an authoritative source for Earth science observations.
• Covers a six-year time range (2010-2015) providing a multi-year perspective.
• Optimized with satellite data (GOSAT), suggesting a constraint on model estimates.
• Focuses on North America, offering regional-scale information.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect the temporal and methodological bias inherent to the specific model and satellite period.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Inversion of the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model constrained by GOSAT satellite observations.

Time Range

2010-2015

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 01:41:48.818870; freshness should be verified.

Geography

North America