The shadow of the Twin Otter aircraft on the Four Corners region of the U.S. University of Michigan engineering researchers rode in the aircraft to measure atmospheric methane. Image credit: Sonja Wolter
ANN ARBOR-At just a bit over crop duster height, University of Michigan researchers are flying through a 50-square-mile hotspot of the greenhouse gas methane over the U.S. Southwest. For the rest of this month, they're part of a broad "air campaign" involving five planes and four institutions. The goal is to figure out more precisely where the methane plume is coming from. Custom instruments bolted to the back of a Twin Otter turboprop are taking live measurements of the atmosphere for the U-M researchers. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration owns the aircraft. "You actually have a little desk in the airplane," said Mackenzie Smith, a postdoctoral research fellow in the U-M department of atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences. "You sit right behind the pilots and you monitor the data from all the instrumentation.
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