Faculty Mentor: Don Blake Student Mentor: Josette Marrero Methane Contributions by Dairy Operations in the Lower Central Valley Of California Methane as a Greenhouse Gas ! Second most anthropogenically emitted GHG ! Higher global warming potential than CO 2 on a per molecule basis
! Anthropogenic Sources ! Livestock and oil and natural gas infrastructure (ONG) ! Policy issues around quantification and identification of point sources ! Creating a methane inventory to understand how methane emissions are changing http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases.html www.claremackintosh.com industrialhousingsolutions.com Central Valley and Sample Restrictions ! High concentration of Oil and Natural Gas (ONG) Fields and Dairies ! Whole Air Samples of the Central Valley from SARP 2009-2014 missions ! Focused on the lower Central Valley below a latitude of 36.90 ! Pressure altitude below 3000 feet ! How do we separate out Dairies and ONG fields? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_(California) Helpful Gases ! Dairies Emit ! Methane ! Ethanol ! Methanol ! ONG Fields Emit ! Methane ! Ethane ! Alkanes ! iso-Pentane ! n-Pentane commons.wikimedia.org Methane Ethanol Concentration Enhancements ! Background Concentrations ! Long-range transport ! Unknown man-made sources ! Natural sources ! All samples of any altitude over the Central Valley ! Uninfluenced by source emissions ! Lowest 10% of each year ! Enhancements ! Difference of restricted samples and background concentrations Methane and Ethanol Enhancements Dairy and ONG Locations Google Earth images Dairy Operations Oil and Natural Gas Operations Google Earth Oil Fields Methane vs. Ethanol of the Central Valley Sample Areas Iso-Pentane vs. n-Pentane iso-Pentane vs. n-Pentane of the Central Valley Sample Areas Iso-Pentane and n-Pentane Outliers Methane vs. Ethanol of the Central Valley Sample Areas Comparison Methane and Methanol Enhancements + Methane vs. Methanol of Central Valley Sample Areas % Methane Calculation Methane to Ethanol Ratio=26.0 Conclusions ! Ethanol emissions were best VOC indicators of Dairy Operations ! 60% is an approximation but, seems reasonable considering the prominence of ONG and Dairy operations in the lower Central Valley ! Dairy Operations are a significant source of methane contribution to Central Valley air quality and policy based on this contribution would be a reasonable decision Acknowledgements ! Josette Marrero ! Dr. Donald Blake ! Rowland-Blake Lab ! Dr. Emily Schaller ! Rick Shetter ! NASA, UND & NSERC ! DC-8 Flight Crew ! Whole Air Sampling Group ! Dr. Julie Snow Questions?