Abstract

Human activities that emit greenhouse gases are undergoing rapid shifts in response to technological, economic, and regulatory pressures. In this dynamic environment, our knowledge of current emissions is often surprisingly incomplete, and this hinders society’s ability to plan effective mitigation actions. In this talk I will discuss our research focused on advancing our understanding of methane emissions through airborne and satellite observations, with a focus on flares, offshore energy production, and cities. I will highlight how observations provide insights into what activities have the greatest climate impact as well as whether mitigation efforts are effective in these different contexts.

Bio

Dr. Kort is a Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Before joining Michigan in 2013, Kort was a W.M. Keck Institute for Space Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology. Kort’s research is focused on atmospheric greenhouse gases and pollutants and has advanced our ability to observe and quantify human impacts on the atmosphere using ground, airborne, and space-based observations. His work has been shown on the floor of the US Senate, and has advanced our ability to understand emissions of oil and gas production, cities, and agricultural regions.  Kort is a member of the NASA OCO-2/OCO-3 and CYGNSS science teams, chair of the science advisory board for Carbon Mapper, a member of the scientific advisory board for the European Integrated Carbon Observation System, and a member of the National Academies Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space (CESAS). Kort is the recipient of the NSF CAREER award and the NASA New Investigator Program award in Earth Science. Kort holds a Ph.D. and S.M. degree in Applied Physics from Harvard University and a B.S. in physics from Pomona College.

https://kort.engin.umich.edu/

References

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad489d
https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c08066
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2215275120
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abq0385
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2021.112756
https://graham.umich.edu/f3uel