A new camera from Sweden's Linköping University and Stockholm University can photograph and film methane in the air to help measure and monitor greenhouse gases.
The camera is very sensitive, which means that the methane is both visible and measureable close to ground level, with much higher resolution than previously. Being able to measure on a small scale is crucial, says Magnus Gålfalk, assistant professor at Tema Environmental Change, Linköping University, who led the study recently published in Nature Climate Change.
The hyperspectral infrared camera weighs 30 kilograms and measures 50 x 45 x 25 centimeters. It's optimized to measure the same radiation that methane absorbs. For each pixel in an image, the camera records a high-resolution spectrum to quantify the methane separately from other gases.