High Precision Monitoring Instrumentation for Background Methane

Improved sensors for Methane are needed to implement national and international programs that will better mankind¿s understanding of global warming and associated climate change. The proposing company has developed a baseline sensor; its detection limit is 23 ppb, or 1% of Methane¿s background (1800 ppb). With the proposed improvements, this sensor will exceed the levels of performance posed by DOC subtopic 8.1.1R: sensitivity of 10 ppb, low maintenance for extended periods at field sites, less than one liter (NTP) of reference gas per day, and negligible response to platform motion. The technique is NonDispersive InfRared applied to the narrow (4 cm-1) Q-Branch of Methane at 3.315 ¿m. In addition to this choice of absorption band, there are many technical innovations that make the instrument functional. But, in summary, the most important innovation will be the system¿s ability to provide informative observations of background Methane from a global network of field sites at an affordable price.