Months after the eruption of a storage well underneath a mountain in Southern California's Aliso Canyon, a continues to spew upwards of 100,000 pounds of methane into the air every hour. As the leak made residents of nearby Porter Ranch sick, California Gov. Jerry Brown on Jan. 6.

The boundary of Southern California Gas Company property, where Aliso Canyon Storage Field is located. (David McNew/AFP/Getty Images)

Leaks of the magnitude of the one in Aliso Canyon are not common, but methane leaks in general are remarkably common– and many of them are on purpose. A new showed that more than 7,000 sites around the world leaked methane gas on purpose as a waste disposal process.

According to National Geographic, off for capacity or safety reasons. The new study was co-funded by the World bank, which launched an initiative to end all routine flaring by 2030.

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Methane, while not dangerous to your health in the long term, does have an intense impact on Earth. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, methane is than carbon dioxide in warming the Earth in the short term.

"Events of this size are rare, but ," Tim O’Connor, the director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s California Oil & Gas Program,said in a statement. “There are plenty of mini-Aliso Canyons that add up to a big climate problem — not just in California, but across the country.”

According to PBS News Hour, there are , but federal regulation is needed to put it all into motion.

"California is just a little microcosm of the kind of challenge, but also the opportunity, that exists," Mark Brownstein, vice president of the climate and energy program at the Environmental Defense Fund, told National Geographic.

The special enabled people around the world to visualize the severity of the problem, and high-tech cameras and satellite views will continue to allow researchers like the ones involved in the recent study to monitor global methane leaks for years to come.

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The Aprapaho Glacier in Colorado in 1898. (NASA)