SWEENEY, Colm. Atmosphere scientist & colleagues show 6-12% of gas production leaking in Unitah County, Utah

Dr Colm Sweeney is the lead scientist for the NOAA Earth System Research Lab Aircraft Program, Colm Sweeney received his Ph.D. in 2000 from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University for his studies of biogeochemical processes in the Southern Ocean. He followed this with a three-year tenure at Princeton University during which time he worked with Dr. Jorge Sarmiento, focusing on computer ocean model simulations. In one study Dr Colm Sweeney used satellite observations of chlorophyll in the surface ocean to predict how absorption of the sun's short wave radiation by phytoplankton might change large scale ocean circulation. In another study Dr Colm Sweeney combined understanding of large-scale ocean circulation with measurements of carbon-14, both in the atmosphere and the ocean, to better constrain air-sea gas exchange of CO₂. Today Dr Colm Sweeney is a research scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado in Boulder, CO. His primary focus is on vertical profiles of greenhouse gas measurements over North America for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Earth Systems Research Laboratory's (ESRL) Carbon Cycle Group. This program is dedicated to understanding both the transport and surface processes that determine greenhouse gas concentrations throughout the free troposphere (below 25,000 feet). Regular flights from numerous sites across North America, as well as targeted, intensive sampling missions, have provided valuable important validation points for models and given new insights into large-scale transport of atmospheric air masses (see: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/aircraft/personnel/sweeney.html ). CIRES is The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and is a joint institute of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (see: http://cires.colorado.edu/about/ ).

Anna Karion¹, Colm Sweeney^1,*, Gabrielle Pétron¹, Gregory Frost¹, R. Michael Hardesty¹, Jonathan Kofler¹, Ben R. Miller¹, Tim Newberger¹, Sonja Wolter¹, Robert Banta², Alan Brewer², Ed Dlugokencky², Patricia Lang², Stephen A. Montzka², Russell Schnell², Pieter Tans², Michael Trainer², Robert Zamora², Stephen Conley³ (¹CIRES, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, ²NOAA/ESRL, Boulder, CO, ³University of California, Davis, CA, * corresponding author) , “Methane emissions estimate from airborne measurements over a Western Unbired Sates natural gas field”, Geophysical Research Letters, 2013, Abstract: “Methane (CH₄) emissions from natural gas production are not well quantified and have the potential to offset the climate benefits of natural gas over other fossil fuels. We use atmospheric measurements in a mass balance approach to estimate CH₄ emissions of 55±15x10³ kg hr^-1 from a natural gas and oil production field in Uintah County, Utah on one day: February 3, 2012. This emission rate corresponds to 6.2-11.7% (1σ) of average hourly natural gas production in Uintah County in the month of February. This study demonstrates the mass balance technique as a valuable tool for estimating emissions from oil and gas production regions, and illustrates the need for further atmospheric measurements to determine the representativeness of our single-day estimate and to better assess inventories of CH₄ emissions”. [1]..

[1]. Anna Karion¹, Colm Sweeney^1,*, Gabrielle Pétron¹, Gregory Frost¹, R. Michael Hardesty¹, Jonathan Kofler¹, Ben R. Miller¹, Tim Newberger¹, Sonja Wolter¹, Robert Banta², Alan Brewer², Ed Dlugokencky², Patricia Lang², Stephen A. Montzka², Russell Schnell², Pieter Tans², Michael Trainer², Robert Zamora², Stephen Conley³ (¹CIRES, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, ²NOAA/ESRL, Boulder, CO, ³University of California, Davis, CA) , “Methane emissions estimate from airborne measurements over a Western Unbired States natural gas field”, Geophysical Research Letters, 2013: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50811/abstract .