Fully Automatic Trace Gas Plume Detection

Abstract

Future imaging spectrometers will increase data volumes by orders of magnitude, requiring automated detection of trace gas point sources. We present a fully automated framework that combines machine learning-based morphological analysis with physics-based spectroscopic fitting to detect plumes without human participation. Applied to EMIT imaging spectrometer data, the system operates in two modes: "daily digest" that runs automatically on all downlinked data, flagging the largest events for immediate response, and a retrospective analysis that identifies plumes missed by prior human review. The daily digest demonstrates that a significant fraction of the largest plumes can be detected automatically with negligible false positives, while retrospective analysis suggests at least 25% of plumes may have been overlooked. In addition to the previously observed methane point sources, we extend detection to three understudied trace gases: NH3, NO2 and the first observations of carbon monoxide (CO) plume in EMIT imagery.