About Mark Omara

Mark Omara

Senior Scientist, Global Methane

Contact

Austin, Texas Office

Work

Areas of expertise:

Methane emissions, global oil and natural gas, climate change impacts

Mark is a Senior Scientist in EDF’s Office of the Chief Scientist. His current work focuses on the assessment and source attribution of methane emissions from global oil and gas operations.

Background

Mark holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY. Prior to joining EDF, he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies where he led the measurements and emissions characterization of methane from oil and natural gas production sites in the Marcellus Shale. He was also actively involved in several methane emissions measurement campaigns focusing on oil and gas upstream and midstream facilities across the country.

Education

Phd, Chemial Engineering, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY (2013)
MS, Chemical Engineering, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY (2010)
BS, Industrial Chemistry, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda (2008)

Publications

For a full list of journal publications, please click here.

“Developing a spatially explicit global oil and gas infrastructure database for characterizing methane emission sources at high resolution.” M. Omara, R. Gautam, et al. Earth Syst. Sci. Data. 15, 3761 (2023), https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-3761-2023

“National quantifications of methane emissions from fuel exploitation using high resolution inversions of satellite observations.” L. Shen, DJ Jacob, R. Gautam, M. Omara, T.R. Scarpelli, A. Lorente, D. Zavala-Araiza, X. Lu, Z. Chen, J. Lin. Nature Comm. 14, 4948 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40671-6

“Satellite quantification of methane emissions and oil-gas methane intensities from individual countries in the Middle East and North Africa: implications for climate action.” Z. Chen, DJ. Jacob, R. Gautam, M. Omara, et al. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 5945 (2023), https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5945-2023

“Methane emissions from US low production oil and natural gas oil well sites.” M. Omara, D. Zavala-Araiza, D. Lyon, B. Hmiel, K. Roberts, S. Hamburg. Nat. Comm. 13, 574 (2022).

“Reconstructing and quantifying methane emissions from the full duration of a 38-day natural gas well blowout using space-based observations.” J.D. Maasakkers, M. Omara, R. Gautam, A. Lorente, S. Pandey, P. Tol, T. Borsdorff, S. Houweling, I. Aben. Remote Sens. Environ. 270, 112755 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2021.112755  

“Closing the methane gap in US oil and natural gas production emissions inventories.” J.S. Rutherford, E.D. Sherwin, A.P. Ravikumar, G.A. Heath, J. Englander, D. Cooley, D. Lyon, M. Omara, Q. Langfitt, A.R. Brandt. Nat. Comm. 12, 4715 (2021).

“Unravelling a large methane emission discrepancy in Mexico using satellite observations.” L. Shen, D. Zavala-Araiza, R. Gautam, M Omara, T. Scarpelli, J. Sheng, M.P. Sulprizio, J. Zhuang, Y. Zhang, Z. Qu, X. Lu, S.P. Hamburg, D.J. Jacob. Remote Sens. Environ. 260, 112461 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2021.112461

“Concurrent variation in oil and gas methane emissions and oil price during the COVID-19 pandemic.” D.R. Lyon, B. Hmiel, R. Gautam, M. Omara, K.A. Roberts, Z.R. Barkley, K.J. Davis, N.L. Miles, V.C. Monteiro, S.J. Richardson, S. Conley, M.L. Smith, D.J. Jacob, L. Shen, D.J. Varon, A. Deng, X. Rudelis, N. Sharma, K.T. Story, A.R. Brandt, M. Kang, E.A. Kort, A.J. Marchese, S.P. Hamburg. Atm. Chem. Phys. 21, 6605-6626 (2021).