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* Music *

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Narrator: Methane shows up nearly everywhere on our planet.  It can come from a variety of

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sources, like wetlands, fossil fuels, and
even livestock.  These diverse sources add

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to the challenge of tracking this potent
greenhouse gas. A molecule of methane is

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able to trap more heat than a CO2 molecule. In fact, it is the second

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leading gas that is contributing to
climate change, and since the Industrial

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Revolution, global methane concentrations
have doubled.

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Benjamin Poulter: It's contributed roughly 20 to 30 percent of the climate change that we've

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experienced to date, and so there's an
urgency in understanding where the

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sources are coming from, so that we can
be better prepared to mitigate methane

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emissions where there are opportunities
to do so.

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Narrator: By using a combination of field

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observations, airborne surveys, and data
from international partners, NASA has

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been able to create a new model of the
sources and global transport of methane.

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This model allows scientists to track
the global methane budget and better

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understand the changes over time.

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Lesley Ott: Everything around methane tends to be a

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few years behind carbon dioxide. So, we're
just catching up to how important and

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how dynamic methane is as a greenhouse
gas.  We see these pulses of methane in

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different places, and when we look deeper,
we understand that those pulses are

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occurring for different reasons. So, we
might see wetlands in one region, we

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might see industrial pollution in
another area.

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Narrator: With this new model, we can

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track the pulses of methane across the
globe to better pinpoint the conditions

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and activities that may cause them.

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Benjamin Poulter: Methane is a difficult gas for us to

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understand, given the diversity of
sources, and then how the sources and the

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emissions get transported throughout the
atmosphere. The 3D simulation that we

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produced here helps us better put
together the entire story for the

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sources of methane and as well as its
removal from the atmosphere.

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Narrator: By taking a

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look at the story of methane, scientists
and policy makers can better understand

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the sources of methane emissions and
work to reduce this greenhouse gas.

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you