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Impact on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Analysis of institutional authors

Guanter, LuisAuthor

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January 30, 2025
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Methane emissions from the Nord Stream subsea pipeline leaks

Publicated to: NATURE. 637 (8048): 1124-1130 - 2025-01-30, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08396-8

Authors:

Harris, SJ; Schwietzke, S; France, JL; Salinas, NV; Fernandez, TM; Randles, C; Guanter, L; Irakulis-Loitxate, I; Calcan, A; Aben, I; Abrahamsson, K; Balcombe, P; Berchet, A; Biddle, LC; Bittig, HC; Boettcher, C; Bouvard, T; Brostroem, G; Bruch, V; Cassiani, M; Chipperfield, MP; Ciais, P; Damm, E; Dammers, E; van der Gon, HD; Dogniaux, M; Dowd, E; Dupouy, F; Eckhardt, S; Evangeliou, N; Feng, WH; Jia, MW; Jiang, F; Kaiser-Weiss, AK; Kamoun, I; Kerridge, BJ; Lampert, A; Lana, J; Li, F; Maasakkers, JD; Maclean, JPW; Mamtimin, B; Marshall, J; Mauger, G; Mekkas, A; Mielke, C; Mohrmann, M; Moore, DP; Nanni, R; Paetzold, F; Pison, I; Pisso, I; Platt, SM; Prea, R; Queste, BY; Ramonet, M; Rehder, G; Remedios, JJ; Reum, F; Roiger, A; Schmidbauer, N; Siddans, R; Sunkisala, A; Thompson, RL; Varon, DJ; Ventress, LJ; Wilson, C; Zhang, YZ
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Affiliations

Alfred Wegener Inst Polar & Marine Res, Bremerhaven, Germany - Author
APPI, SE-42160 Vastra Frolunda, Sweden - Author
Deutsch Wetterdienst, Offenbach, Germany - Author
Deutsch Zentrum Luft & Raumfahrt eV DLR, Inst Phys Atmosphare, Ulm, Germany - Author
Enagas Transporte SAU, Madrid, Spain - Author
Environm Def Fund Europe, Brussels, Belgium - Author
German Environm Agcy, Rosslau, Germany - Author
GHGSat Inc, Montreal, PQ, Canada - Author
Harvard Univ, Sch Engn & Appl Sci, Cambridge, MA USA - Author
Leibniz Inst Baltic Sea Res Warnemunde IOW, Dept Marine Chem, Rostock, Germany - Author
Nanjing Univ, Int Inst Earth Syst Sci, Jiangsu Prov Key Lab Geog Informat Sci & Technol, Nanjing, Peoples R China - Author
NILU, Kjeller, Norway - Author
Queen Mary Univ London, Sch Engn & Mat Sci, London, England - Author
SRON Netherlands Inst Space Res, Leiden, Netherlands - Author
STFC Rutherford Appleton Lab, Natl Ctr Earth Observat, Chilton, Berks, England - Author
STFC Rutherford Appleton Lab, Remote Sensing Grp, Chilton, England - Author
Tech Univ Carolo Wilhelmina Braunschweig, Inst Flight Guidance, Braunschweig, Germany - Author
TNO, Dept Air Qual & Emiss Res, Utrecht, Netherlands - Author
United Nations Environm Programmes Int Methane Emi, Paris, France - Author
Univ Gothenburg, Dept Marine Sci, Gothenburg, Sweden - Author
Univ Leeds, Natl Ctr Earth Observat, Leeds, England - Author
Univ Leeds, NCAS, Leeds, England - Author
Univ Leeds, Sch Earth & Environm, Leeds, England - Author
Univ Leicester, Natl Ctr Earth Observat, Leicester, Leics, England - Author
Univ Leicester, Sch Phys & Astron, Leicester, England - Author
Univ London Royal Holloway, Dept Earth Sci, Egham, Surrey, England - Author
Univ Paris Saclay, Lab Sci Climat & Environm, LSCE IPSL, CEA CNRS UVSQ, Gif Sur Yvette, France - Author
Univ Paris Saclay, Serv Thermo Hydraul & Mecan Fluides, CEA, Gif Sur Yvette, France - Author
Univ Politecn Valencia, Res Inst Water & Environm Engn IIAMA, Valencia, Spain - Author
Vrije Univ Amsterdam, Dept Earth Sci, Amsterdam, Netherlands - Author
Westlake Univ, Sch Engn, Key Lab Coastal Environm & Resources Zhejiang Prov, Hangzhou, Peoples R China - Author
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Abstract

The amount of methane released to the atmosphere from the Nord Stream subsea pipeline leaks remains uncertain, as reflected in a wide range of estimates1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17-18. A lack of information regarding the temporal variation in atmospheric emissions has made it challenging to reconcile pipeline volumetric (bottom-up) estimates1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7-8 with measurement-based (top-down) estimates8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17-18. Here we simulate pipeline rupture emission rates and integrate these with methane dissolution and sea-surface outgassing estimates9,10 to model the evolution of atmospheric emissions from the leaks. We verify our modelled atmospheric emissions by comparing them with top-down point-in-time emission-rate estimates and cumulative emission estimates derived from airborne11, satellite8,12, 13-14 and tall tower data. We obtain consistency between our modelled atmospheric emissions and top-down estimates and find that 465 +/- 20 thousand metric tons of methane were emitted to the atmosphere. Although, to our knowledge, this represents the largest recorded amount of methane released from a single transient event, it is equivalent to 0.1% of anthropogenic methane emissions for 2022. The impact of the leaks on the global atmospheric methane budget brings into focus the numerous other anthropogenic methane sources that require mitigation globally. Our analysis demonstrates that diverse, complementary measurement approaches are needed to quantify methane emissions in support of the Global Methane Pledge19.
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Keywords

Atmospheric methaneCathare codeFrameworkGas leakIasIasiLife below waterModelPoint sourcesSatellite-observationsStateV1.0

Quality index

Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel

The work has been published in the journal NATURE due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2025, it was in position 1/141, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Multidisciplinary Sciences. Notably, the journal is positioned above the 90th percentile.

Independientemente del impacto esperado determinado por el canal de difusión, es importante destacar el impacto real observado de la propia aportación.

Según las diferentes agencias de indexación, el número de citas acumuladas por esta publicación hasta la fecha 2026-11-04:

  • Open Alex: 16
  • WoS: 18
  • Scopus: 22
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Impact and social visibility

From the perspective of influence or social adoption, and based on metrics associated with mentions and interactions provided by agencies specializing in calculating the so-called "Alternative or Social Metrics," we can highlight as of 2026-11-04:

  • The use, from an academic perspective evidenced by the Altmetric agency indicator referring to aggregations made by the personal bibliographic manager Mendeley, gives us a total of: 36.
  • The use of this contribution in bookmarks, code forks, additions to favorite lists for recurrent reading, as well as general views, indicates that someone is using the publication as a basis for their current work. This may be a notable indicator of future more formal and academic citations. This claim is supported by the result of the "Capture" indicator, which yields a total of: 39 (PlumX).

With a more dissemination-oriented intent and targeting more general audiences, we can observe other more global scores such as:

  • The Total Score from Altmetric: 444.
  • The number of mentions on the social network Facebook: 1 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions on the social network X (formerly Twitter): 43 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions on Wikipedia: 3 (Altmetric).
  • The number of mentions in news outlets: 39 (Altmetric).

It is essential to present evidence supporting full alignment with institutional principles and guidelines on Open Science and the Conservation and Dissemination of Intellectual Heritage. A clear example of this is:

  • The work has been submitted to a journal whose editorial policy allows open Open Access publication.
Continuing with the social impact of the work, it is important to emphasize that, due to its content, it can be assigned to the area of interest of ODS 14 - Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development, with a probability of 75% according to the mBERT algorithm developed by Aurora University.
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Leadership analysis of institutional authors

This work has been carried out with international collaboration, specifically with researchers from: Belgium; Canada; China; France; Germany; Netherlands; Norway; Sweden; United Kingdom; United States of America.

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Awards linked to the item

This research was funded in the framework of UNEP's International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO). We thank E. Nisbet and D. Zavala-Araiza for comments on the paper; and A. Sundberg from the Swedish Coast Guard (Kustbevakningen) for providing us with sea foam patch diameter measurements for the NS1A and northern NS2A leak sites. We thank the Danish Energy Agency (Energistyrelsen) for supplying information on pipeline pressures. The CATHARE code (https://cathare.cea.fr) is developed by the CEA in the framework of the NEPTUNE project, supported by the CEA, EDF (Electricity of France), FRAMATOME and IRSN (French Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety Institute). B.Y.Q., L.C.B. and M.M. thank Alseamar for loan of the Franatech METS sensor and J. Gronemann at Franatech for support in processing the methane data. B.Y.Q.'s time was funded by the Voice of the Ocean Foundation, EU GROOM II grant (ID 951842), and Swedish Formas grant 2022-01536. Operation of DE-SOOP-Finnmaid was supported through ICOS by the German Federal Ministries for Education and Research (BMBF) and Digital and Transport (BMDV). The University of Gothenburg provided funding for ship time aboard the RV Skagerak. IASI retrievals used in inversion 1 were produced using JASMIN, the UK collaborative data analysis facility. Development of the version of RAL's IASI retrieval scheme from which Nord Stream methane data were produced was funded through UK NCEO and ESA's Methane+ project (ESA contract number 4000129987/20/I-DT). M.D. was in part funded through the ESA MethaneCAMP project. Inversion 1 model simulations were carried out using ARC4, part of the High-Performance Computing facilities at the University of Leeds, UK. EUMETSAT provided data for MetOp-B IASI, MHS and AMSU-A data, and ECMWF provided meteorological data used in inversion 1. Inversion 1 work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council through its grants to the UK National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO; NERC grant numbers NE/R016518/1 and NE/N018079/1). HELiPOD measurements in October 2022 were partly funded by UNEP's IMEO, partly by DLR, and the measurements in November 2022 were funded by the German Research Foundation under grant LA 2907/19-1. Work conducted as part of the inversion 2 analysis was funded by ReGAME (NFR 325610), ICOS (NFR 296012) and EYE-clima (Horizon Europe 101081395). I. Pisso and S.E. acknowledge funding from Reduch4e (NKL-2304). Inversion 3 analysis was supported by BMDV with HoTC (grant 50EW2013A) and by BMBF with ITMS (grant 01LK2102B). Y.Z. acknowledges funding by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFE0209100) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42275112).
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