Long-wave infrared imaging of vegetation for detecting leaking CO2 gas

The commercial development of microbolometer uncooled long-wave thermal infrared imagers in conjuncture with advanced radiometric calibration methods developed at Montana State University has led to new uses of thermal imagery in remote sensing applications. A novel use of these calibrated imagers is imaging of vegetation for CO2 gas leak detection. During a four-week period in the summer of 2011, a CO2 leak was simulated in a test field run by the Zero Emissions Research and Technology Center in Bozeman, Montana. Thermal infrared images were acquired, along with visible and near-infrared reflectance images, of the exposed vegetation and healthy control vegetation. The increased root-level CO2 concentration causes plant stress that results in reduced thermal regulation of the vegetation, which is detectable as an increased diurnal variation of infrared emission. . In a linear regression, the infrared data were found to have a strong coefficient of determination and clearly show the effect of the CO2 on the vegetation.