A study analyzing the sensitivity of atmospheric monitoring techniques for detecting fugitive methane emissions from coal seam gas (CSG) fields. The work is based on three years of continuous methane and carbon dioxide measurements from the 'Arcturus' monitoring station in Australia's Bowen Basin. Researchers used a coupled meteorological and air pollution model to simulate emissions and statistically compare perturbed signals against a baseline.
Use Cases
- Modeling the detectability of fugitive methane emissions based on simulated emission rates and distances.
- Establishing a statistical baseline for atmospheric methane signals in gas-producing regions.
- Evaluating the performance of a single monitoring station for verifying emission reductions.
- Analyzing the influence of various methane sources (cattle, landfill, coal production) on regional atmospheric readings.
Strengths
- Analysis is based on a three-year baseline of continuous atmospheric measurements.
- Simulations cover a range of fugitive emission rates (from <1% to up to 10% of production) and distances (10-50 km).
- Emissions modeling uses parameters typical of Australian CSG fields, including well density and production volumes.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- The dataset is associated with a 2013 conference poster; freshness should be verified.
Provenance
- Source
- Geoscience Australia and CSIRO Marine & Atmospheric Research
- Collection Method
- Continuous atmospheric measurements collected at the 'Arcturus' monitoring station, combined with simulations using the TAPM prognostic model.
- Time Range
- Three years of baseline data, with simulations for a 1-year period.
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-06-23 00:28:22.602467; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Bowen Basin, Australia.