Methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and isotopic ratios of methane observations from the Permian Basin tower network

[摘要] We describe the instrumentation, calibration, and uncertainty of the network of ground-based, in situ, cavity ring down spectroscopy (CRDS)greenhouse gas (GHG) measurements deployed in the Permian Basin. The primary goal of the network is to be used in conjunction with atmospherictransport modeling to determine methane emissions of the Delaware sub-basin of the Permian Basin oil and natural gas extraction area in Texas andNew Mexico. Four of the measurements are based on tall communications towers, while one is on a building on a mountain ridge, with the recentaddition of a small tower at that site. Although methane ( CH 4 ) is the primary species of interest, carbon dioxide ( CO 2 ), hydrogensulfide ( H 2 S ), and the isotopic ratio of methane ( δ 13 CH 4 ) are also reported for a subset of the sites. Measurements werereported following the WMO X2004A scale for CH 4 and the WMO X2019 scale for CO 2 . CRDS instruments were calibrated for CH 4 and CO 2 in the laboratory prior to deployment. For H 2 S , data were offset-corrected using the minimum 40  min running mean value of theday, and for δ 13 CH 4 , calibrations were based on laboratory data. We describe the characteristics of the dataset with a set ofillustrative analyses. Methane and carbon dioxide showed strong seasonality, with a well-defined diurnal cycle during the summer, which was opposedto the winter, when a diurnal cycle was absent. CH 4 enhancements to the background, during the winter, are up to twice the summer values,which is attributed to the changes in boundary layer depth and wind speed. The largest CH 4 enhancements occurred when winds blow from thecenter of the Delaware sub-basin, where most of the methane emissions come from. The magnitude of enhancements of CO 2 did not presentseasonality. H 2 S enhancements indicated a potential source northeast of the tower (Hobbs, New Mexico) where the inlet is installed. Isotopicratios of methane indicated that oil and natural gas extraction is the source of local methane in the region. The hourly-averaged data, starting on1 March 2020 and described in this paper, are archived at The Pennsylvania State University Data Commons at https://doi.org/10.26208/98y5-t941 (Monteiro etal., 2021).

[学科分类] 眼科学