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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-4468</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Evaluating When and Where TROPOMI XCH4 Uncertainties Yield Consistent Flux Estimation over East, South, and Central Asia</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Hu</surname>
<given-names>Wei</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8780-7362</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Cohen</surname>
<given-names>Jason Blake</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9889-8175</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Lu</surname>
<given-names>Lingxiao</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3839-9083</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zheng</surname>
<given-names>Bo</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Tiwari</surname>
<given-names>Pravash</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4770-4526</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Lolli</surname>
<given-names>Simone</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6111-152X</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Garzelli</surname>
<given-names>Andrea</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Li</surname>
<given-names>Jun</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Qin</surname>
<given-names>Kai</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1280-6330</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>School of Environment and Spatial Informatics, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Shanxi Key Laboratory of Environmental Remote Sensing Applications, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>CNR-Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis (IMAA), Contrada S. Loja, Tito Scalo, 85050, Italy</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics, University of Siena, Siena 53100, Italy</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>National Institute of Clean and Low Carbon Energy, Beijing 102211, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>06</day>
<month>10</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>22</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Wei Hu et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4468/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4468/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4468/egusphere-2026-4468.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-4468/egusphere-2026-4468.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Satellite remote sensing of methane (CH&lt;sub&gt;4&lt;/sub&gt;) offers the potential to monitor emissions across large scales, but skepticism remains among regulators, policymakers, and the scientific community of both the precision and accuracy of such estimations due to unquantified observational uncertainties. Using 500 perturbation experiments with four error distributions applied to TROPOMI XCH&lt;sub&gt;4 &lt;/sub&gt;over East, South, and Central Asia, we systematically assess where and when divergence‑based emission estimates are reliable. We show that the shape of the uncertainty distribution &amp;ndash; not just its magnitude &amp;ndash; governs error propagation and thus effects the stability of derived fluxes. Furthermore we show that uncertainty propogates over both space and time, indicating that purely local accounting may lead to an underestimate of uncertainty. Coal‑dominated industrial grids retain trustworthy signals (30% retention of valid perturbations), whereas agricultural and mixed‑use grids retain only 16%, indicating that current filtering practices are insufficient for these land types. These results provide a practical, uncertainty‑aware filter for satellite‑derived methane emissions, directly supporting the Global Methane Pledge and national greenhouse gas inventories by identifying where satellite data can be trusted (coal‑dominated regions) and where additional caution or alternative approaches are needed. The process is data-neutral and can be extended to other satellite platforms and adopted by other regions around the globe.</p>
</abstract>
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<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>International Science and Technology Cooperation Program of Shanxi Province</funding-source>
<award-id>202304041101026</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>Jiangsu Provincial Department of Science and Technology</funding-source>
<award-id>BZ2024060</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs3">
<funding-source>United Nations Environment Programme</funding-source>
<award-id>CCD25-MB7876</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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<back>
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