The Hub Talks: Quantifying atmospheric trace-gas emissions using broadband satellite observations

Name: The Hub Talks: Quantifying atmospheric trace-gas emissions using broadband satellite observations
Start: 2025-10-30T15:00:00+01:00
End: 2025-10-30T16:00:00+01:00
Location: Online

October 30 @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm CET

Speaker: Daniel Varon is an Assistant Professor at MIT in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. He received his PhD in atmospheric chemistry from Harvard University in 2020 and held postdoctoral fellowships at both Harvard and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs from 2020 to 2025. His research revolves around satellite remote sensing of atmospheric composition with a focus on quantifying methane and NOx emissions. He is an Associate Editor of the Atmospheric Measurement Techniques journal, Model Scientist of the Integrated Methane Inversion (IMI) cloud-computing tool for quantifying atmospheric methane emissions with satellite observations, and Co-Nested Model Scientist of the GEOS-Chem global chemical transport model.

Abstract: Broadband multispectral satellite instruments have supported a wide range of land-imaging applications since the 1970s. In this talk, I will show how these ubiquitous sensors can also quantify atmospheric trace-gas emissions at facility scale. I will discuss: (1) high-resolution retrieval of methane plumes from oil and gas facilities with the Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument (MSI); (2) near-real-time detection of large, transient methane releases using the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI); and (3) mapping of NOx point sources at 10–60 m with Sentinel-2 MSI and the Landsat Operational Land Imager (OLI).