An Improved Calibration for Satellite Estimation of Flared Gas Volumes from VIIRS Nighttime Data

Mikhail Zhizhin (), Christopher D. Elvidge (), Tamara Sparks, Tilottama Ghosh, Morgan Bazilian and Feng-Chi Hsu
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Mikhail Zhizhin: Payne Institute for Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Christopher D. Elvidge: Payne Institute for Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Tamara Sparks: PSE Healthy Energy, Oakland, CA 94612, USA
Tilottama Ghosh: Payne Institute for Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Morgan Bazilian: Payne Institute for Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Feng-Chi Hsu: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 17, 1-32

Abstract: The VIIRS Nightfire (VNF) data product is particularly useful for monitoring of global natural gas flaring and estimation of flared gas volumes. Advantages of VIIRS include the collection of nightly global coverage with the inclusion of four daytime channels in the near and shortwave infrared that cover the wavelengths of peak radiant emissions from flares. VNF calculates flare temperatures, source areas, and radiant heat using physical laws. For more than a decade, the Earth Observation Group has estimated flared gas volumes based on radiant heat with a calibration based on reported annual flared and vented natural gas volumes from Cedigaz. The calibration was tuned with an exponent of 0.7 placed on the VNF source areas to achieve the highest regression correlation coefficient. The Cedigaz calibration has wide error bars attributed to unresolvable reporting errors in the Cedigaz data. In this paper we report on the development of an empirical calibration for estimating flared gas volumes based on VIIRS observations of flares running at low, medium, and high flared gas volumes. Tests were run with both single and double flares, with and without atmospheric correction. The new calibrations were applied to VIIRS detection profiles for metered flares located in the North Sea, Arabian Peninsula, and Gulf of Mexico. The results indicate the following: (1) the exponent is unnecessary and causes flared gas volumes to be overestimated for small flares and underestimated for large flares, (2) the calibration can be applied to sites having either single or multiple flares, and (3) flared gas volume estimates can be improved by applying an atmospheric correction to account for regional difference in band-specific transmissivity levels. The new calibration has a prediction interval (error bars) seventy times smaller than the Cedigaz calibration.

Keywords: flaring; natural gas; VIIRS; Nightfire (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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