Patent ID: 8121798

Claim:
A system for remotely determining emission rate of a gas plume from a source comprising: an optical remote sensing system, disposed in an aircraft, for emitting an optical beam downwardly, along a length dimension of a flight path, and measuring differential absorption characteristics of the gas plume emitted at near ground level, a wind measuring system, disposed in the aircraft, for determining wind speed and wind heading at an altitude level of the aircraft, and a processor for determining emission rate of the gas plume, in response to (a) the differential absorption characteristics of the gas plume measured by the optical remote sensing system, and (b) the wind speed and wind heading determined by the wind measuring system, wherein the differential absorption characteristics include multiple concentration path length (CPL) values along a length dimension of the flight path, and the processor uses the multiple CPL values to determine either (a) an area-integrated concentration (AIC) value or (b) an average concentration value over a cross-plume extent, defined along the length dimension of the flight path, the processor receives the wind speed and wind heading from the wind measuring system and scales the wind speed from the aircraft altitude level to the near ground level of the gas plume, the processor adjusts the wind heading received from the wind measuring system after a comparison to a wind heading received from a plume heading detector disposed in the aircraft, and the processor uses the adjusted wind heading in determining the emission rate of the gas plume.