Article Dans Une Revue Nature Année : 2025

Methane emissions from the Nord Stream subsea pipeline leaks

Stephen J Harris
Stefan Schwietzke
James L France
Nataly Velandia Salinas
  • Fonction : Auteur
Tania Meixus Fernandez
  • Fonction : Auteur
Cynthia Randles
  • Fonction : Auteur
Luis Guanter
  • Fonction : Auteur
Itziar Irakulis-Loitxate
Andreea Calcan
Ilse Aben
  • Fonction : Auteur
Katarina Abrahamsson
  • Fonction : Auteur
Paul Balcombe
Louise C Biddle
Henry C Bittig
Christian Böttcher
  • Fonction : Auteur
Timo Bouvard
Göran Broström
  • Fonction : Auteur
Valentin Bruch
Massimo Cassiani
  • Fonction : Auteur
Martyn P Chipperfield
Ellen Damm
Enrico Dammers
Hugo Denier van der Gon
Matthieu Dogniaux
Emily Dowd
François Dupouy
Sabine Eckhardt
  • Fonction : Auteur
Nikolaos Evangeliou
Wuhu Feng
Mengwei Jia
Fei Jiang
Andrea K Kaiser-Weiss
Brian J Kerridge
  • Fonction : Auteur
Astrid Lampert
José Lana
  • Fonction : Auteur
Fei Li
Joannes D Maasakkers
Jean-Philippe W Maclean
  • Fonction : Auteur
Buhalqem Mamtimin
Julia Marshall
Anouar Mekkas
  • Fonction : Auteur
Christian Mielke
  • Fonction : Auteur
Martin Mohrmann
David P Moore
Riccardo Nanni
  • Fonction : Auteur
Falk Pätzold
Ignacio Pisso
Stephen M Platt
  • Fonction : Auteur
Bastien Y Queste
Gregor Rehder
John J Remedios
Friedemann Reum
Anke Roiger
  • Fonction : Auteur
Norbert Schmidbauer
  • Fonction : Auteur
Richard Siddans
  • Fonction : Auteur
Anusha Sunkisala
  • Fonction : Auteur
Rona L Thompson
Daniel J Varon
Lucy J Ventress
Chris Wilson
Yuzhong Zhang

Résumé

The amount of methane released to the atmosphere from the Nord Stream subsea pipeline leaks remains uncertain, as reflected in a wide range of estimates 1-18 . A lack of information regarding the temporal variation in atmospheric emissions has made it challenging to reconcile pipeline volumetric (bottom-up) estimates 1-8 with measurement-based (top-down) estimates 8-18 . Here we simulate pipeline rupture emission rates and integrate these with methane dissolution and sea-surface outgassing estimates 9,10 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 airborne 11 , satellite 8,12-14 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 Pledge 19 . Subsea natural gas leaks from pipeline ruptures and well blowouts can emit large quantities of methane (CH 4 ) to the ocean and atmosphere. Prominent examples are the 22/4b well blowout 20,21 , the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster 22,23 and the Elgin rig blowout 24 . The Nord Stream 1 and 2 twin pipeline systems (NS1 and NS2) are a network of offshore pipelines underlying the Baltic Sea that connect the Russian natural gas supply with Europe 25-27 . On 26 September 2022, damage to both NS1 and NS2 occurred in a series of underwater explosions, resulting in the leakage of natural gas (Fig. 1). The first explosion occurred at 00:03 UTC southeast of the Danish Island of Bornholm in the Bornholm Basin, rupturing pipeline A of the twin NS2 pipeline system (NS2A) at approximately 70 m depth 28-30 . This explosion destroyed approximately 10 m of the pipeline 31 . At 17:03 UTC, multiple explosions to the northeast of Bornholm ruptured both NS1 pipelines (NS1A and NS1B) at depths of approximately 75 m (ref. 30) and caused a smaller partial rupture in the NS2A pipeline to the north of the previous NS2A leak 31,32 . These explosions destroyed 200-300 m of the NS1A and NS1B pipelines 31 . The NS2B pipeline remained undamaged 33 .

Although not operational at the time, both NS1 and NS2 pipeline systems were filled with pressurized natural gas 1-5 . The natural gas released from the ruptured pipelines was predominantly CH 4 along with small amounts of ethane, nitrogen and other hydrocarbons 34 . The emitted gas was seen bubbling through the sea surface above the four rupture sites, creating bulging mounds of foamy seawater of up

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Dates et versions

hal-04902894 , version 1 (21-01-2025)

Identifiants

Citer

Stephen J Harris, Stefan Schwietzke, James L France, Nataly Velandia Salinas, Tania Meixus Fernandez, et al.. Methane emissions from the Nord Stream subsea pipeline leaks. Nature, 2025, ⟨10.1038/s41586-024-08396-8⟩. ⟨hal-04902894⟩
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