Researchers from American institutions report that the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 coincided with a rise in methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas, even as the region faced an economic downturn and a sharp drop in oil and gas output. The work appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a leading scientific journal. The study highlights how geopolitical and economic upheaval can ripple through energy systems, affecting emissions trajectories years after a major political shift.
To analyze this trend, the team applied current artificial intelligence tools to satellite data. They relied on observations from NASA’s Landsat-5 satellite, a long-running source of Earth imagery that has supported environmental research for decades. The researchers used these images to monitor methane plumes across the landscape with a level of precision made possible by modern machine learning techniques that can identify gas releases beyond what the naked eye can detect.
The analysis focused on Turkmenistan, a country whose gas production contracted dramatically in the post-Soviet period, with an estimated 85% decline between 1991 and 1998. This drastic change in the energy sector provided a natural laboratory for examining how infrastructure, regulation, and market dynamics influence emissions independent of overall production levels.
Over a 25-year window from 1986 through 2011, the AI-based assessment identified 776 methane events in Turkmenistan. The results showed a pattern of both larger and more frequent emissions after 1991. In several oil and gas basins, methane clouds were so extensive that they occupied entire satellite scenes, illustrating the scale of the ongoing releases and their potential environmental impact during the period of transition.
The researchers proposed that weaker energy infrastructure, reduced oversight of wells, and fewer export routes could have contributed to higher emissions. When monitoring systems frayed or were disrupted by economic stress, both deliberate venting and accidental leaks can become more common. These dynamics underscore how policy choices and investment in maintenance influence methane outcomes, even in places where overall production has fallen.
According to the study, the year 1994 marked a peak in Turkmenistan’s methane emissions. During this interval, geopolitical tensions and energy supply constraints played a role, including interactions with neighboring countries that affected access to European markets through pipelines. The team notes that analogous patterns may be present in other former Soviet republics, though they emphasize the need for further study to confirm cross-country applicability and to understand regional differences in infrastructure and regulation that shape emissions profiles.
Earlier research has warned that methane emissions may rise sharply in the context of permafrost thaw and the release of methane clathrates, sometimes referred to as methane hydrates. The current findings add to that body of knowledge by illustrating how human systems—economic upheaval, infrastructure degradation, and shifting export routes—can amplify natural gas release mechanisms during transitional periods. While the Turkmenistan case provides a focused example, its implications extend to similar transitions in other regions, highlighting the importance of maintaining monitoring, safety practices, and environmental safeguards even when energy demand and production are in flux.
Overall, the study demonstrates how satellite-based observation, combined with advanced AI analytics, can reveal hidden emissions trends across large areas and over extended times. The use of Landsat-5 imagery shows that older but high-quality data, when processed with modern techniques, remains valuable for understanding long-term environmental changes. This approach helps policymakers, researchers, and industry stakeholders assess methane management strategies, design better containment measures, and evaluate how economic and political disruptions influence greenhouse gas releases in real-world settings.