A NASA instrument designed to study dust has revealed that some of the largest methane clouds ever seen are floating over the US, Iran and elsewhere.
Some of the largest clouds of heat-trapping methane gas ever detected are currently floating over New Mexico, Iran and several other"super-emitter" hot spots around the world, according to a new NASA report.
NASA's Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation ), which was installed on the International Space Station in July to help scientists understand how dust affects climate change, managed to detect methane plumes as well. Methane plumes from these sources ranged from 2 miles to 20 miles wide, and researchers estimate that these three sources together emit around 170,000 pounds of methane per hour.
EMIT was originally designed to help researchers understand another atmospheric phenomenon that affects climate — dust that is swept around the globe from Earth's largest deserts. The minerals that make up the dust can trap or reflect heat, depending on their chemical makeup, and until now, there wasn't an instrument capable of producing high-resolution data about these minerals.
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