> The fleet of three satellites is slated for launch in 2025, in time to inform the UN’s global stocktake of greenhouse gas emissions three years later
This is a very good project. Having independent monitoring of CO2 and CH4 worldwide using the same method will be useful. It's unfortunate it can't get launched sooner, as data trends are very important (or at least, they're very interesting to me as a layperson observer).
These satellites are open data, so anyone can review the resulting data for whatever purpose. And if your country signs a carbon-reduction treaty, then doesn't abide by that treaty, this provides the data to prove it (similar to the recent collection of data proving that ozone-depleting chemicals were being produced in northern China, in violation of the almost 30 year old Montreal Protocol). Trustworthy data is incredibly important.
Monitoring need not be policing. But don't worry, as much as the Earth needs a global EPA, we won't be getting one under current regimes. Maybe some future generation will develop one after the climate is harmed enough.
When you put it like that, I agree, however America is abandoning its leadership responsibilities and somebody has to fill the void. What's the alternative? BRICS?
You won't go on with business as usual if you are being monitored.
I remember something about a town that frequently reported a list of their most polluting local businesses. And the businesses started to become more environmentally friendly just to not appear on this list! There were no fines or other disadvantages, they just appeared on the list.
I'll add a link later if I can find something about it (wish me luck, it seems ogooglebar as Swedes might call it).
This works in a social setting, a community, a market but it's much less likely to work against countries as a whole. The policy makers respond to local voters (at best) not other countries.
We've named and shamed China for a few years now that it produces 50% of the world's ocean plastic pollution from a single river. Little has changed.
If, as someone else said, tariffs were imposed to all countries as a function of greenhouse gas output, it would disincentivise their production, and incentivize cleaning country-wide emissions.
As with most things, there is no silver bullet, but a combination of motivators will create the change we need. Independent data monitoring is the first major step to make it possible.
Politicians here like to say our country "already does so much" and we'd be stupid to lead even more. Which is simply not true: we really don't do our fair share of CO2 reductions and are not on track to meet our obligations.
Good data would spell this out to the public and help "sell" the required policies to the people.
Coal power generation is still used in Europe, with some countries even increasing usage after Fukushima nuclear event, pulling some nuclear plans. Germany being a classic example of that. https://www.banktrack.org/news/civil_society_joins_forces_to...
Problem is, countries tend to place such power generating plants near their borders. This in many instances will, with prevailing winds - show lots of CO2 present in a country that did not produce it.
Now the EU has laws and fines for exceeding limits, yet if the wind blows the wrong way - a city/town that by itself sits inside those limits, can tip over those limits. So that city/town ends up with a fine from the EU, not the other source that tipped the balance - which probably has some nice carbon credit deal in-place enabling them to carry on.
However - I've not seen a comparison of satellite monitoring in an area which also has extensive ground based monitoring stations. That would be most interesting and insightful. Though I suspect that you could very well see higher levels on the ground that the satellite measures due to water vapour/cleaner air in upper layers defusing the results. Equally you could have clean air at the ground layer and higher pollution in the upper layer and the satellite will show high co2/pollution levels.
Either way, capture at source is needed more and more as many legacy industrial infrastructure pumping it out on the back of carbon credits.
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Nobody in their right mind would even suggest automatically fining countries or cities based on the colour of pixels on a satellite CO₂ map. If a place shows unexpectedly high CO₂ levels, I expect an investigation will happen in order to determine who's emitting it. Weather satellites and ground stations should resolve doubts about wind direction.
WRT. ground stations, satellite monitoring has the nice benefit that you don't have to coordinate with the monitoring territories, or even ask them for permission. The data may be less precise, but it'll be much easier to gather, and much more consistent.
>Nobody in their right mind would even suggest automatically fining countries or cities based on the colour of pixels on a satellite CO₂ map.
Didn't say they would, and the point I was making was how a location can go over those limits due to external factors outside their control. Which may well be just above normal in themselves, yet combined with another producing area which in itself would be normal, combined - tip the balance. Sure if you have a clear cut case, I'd expect due process, but when the lines are literally blurred, you get a different picture.
Sure sats do give a nice simple big picture, but currently just 2D snapshots of many layers of 3D space. That may well change over time.
The satellite gives gas concentration in the atmosphere. It’s a second step, called “flux inversion,” to backtrack from the concentration to emission, or “flux” in the jargon.
You need to have wind information (“advection”) to do this, of course. There is a scientific literature going back decades on these approaches.
One area of data sources would be nature itself - plants, insect, birds, mammals - all of those can act as sensors, the ability to measure those more accurately would be more useful IMHO. Though even when the signs are clear with all those natural sensors - people still demand more data. It's as if we live in a World that won't accept the warning sign, unless it is an approved font,colour,size and been approved by a committee that expands at a rate faster than it can vote.
>Michael Buckwitz, a physicist at Bremen University and an advisor to the project, said every source of CO2 on earth would be passed over every two to three days.
Given the predictable orbits, what will prevent nations / companies from emitting less on "surveillance hour", and emitting more when out of sight?
Given a certain density of satellites there must be a crossover point where avoiding detection is either more cost prohibitive than just retooling to avoiding emissions, and/or where emitters will be offline so much to avoid detection that they’ll essentially be cutting their emissions by shutting down anyway.
There is already a terrestrial CO2 measuring network of sensors being built, see the BeaCO2n net [1]. While coverage is sparse so far, it could be greatly enhanced, at cost likely to be cheaper than a constellation of satellites.
I'll be watching these projects as I was contemplating setting up my own amateur atmospheric CO2 measuring station, a not-so-simple task once you consider sensor accuracy and periodic calibration.
There's plenty of monitoring networks around the world of varying quality and coverage; they're usually focused on air quality though. That said, I can't see how making adequate ground station coverage could ever be cheaper than a satellite constellation. Ground stations are essentially points on the ground; you'd need a really dense network. The best way to do that would probably be to build CO₂ sensors into cars or smartphones - and still, you'll quite likely exclude a lot of the more interesting (read: polluting) places. That's before considering continuous maintenance and ensuring availability of the data.
Satellite measurements may be less precise, but they are consistent and cover the ground more-less uniformly, regardless of what infrastructure is on the ground. It also sidesteps coordinating with individuals and countries. Finally, a satellite sees all; ground stations only see what's at the ground level.
One CO2 monitoring network that already exists and is mature is Aeronet, which has around 30 sites. The network is used to validate the CO2 satellite data we have now, including NASAs OCO-2.
Argh! Correct network for CO2 validation is actually TCCON. Aeronet is a related set of in situ measurements, in some cases collocated with TCCON sites.
This is a brilliant idea and I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. I thought (but never checked) that weather satellites would have this in their observation spectrum; apparently, they don't. I strongly hope the project will happen, and will happen on schedule.
The article shows a graphic of what existing monitoring satellites can do compared to what these satellites will do. For comparison, NASA launched the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 [1] in 2014, and it can monitor a swath 10km wide. This announcement is about Sentinel-7 [2], and it will monitor a swath 240km wide. This huge increase in monitoring will significantly improve what it can monitor (eg, montly/annual trends in CO2 production)
edit: It will allow monitoring of all CO2 production sites every two or three days
One very important feature that simple in situ monitors don’t provide is total column CO2. That’s the average concentration from the ground up to the top of atmosphere.
The satellites, and advanced ground measurements, get total column CO2 by observing the behavior of slices of the solar spectrum that are affected by CO2. Basically, the gas absorbs some wavelengths and re-emits in others.
Good CO2 detectors are not that common on the ground. You'd think they'd be built into all "smart" thermostats, smoke alarms, etc. But no. The part costs about $50.[1] Power consumption of the latest models is about 75mW, so you need a power source for long term use. Not going to get a year on an AA battery yet.
I have a CO2 meter, and it's interesting to take it places. California coast at the ocean, about 380ppm. That's as low as it gets. My own house indoors, which is not very airtight, around 550ppm. Half-full restaurant, around 800ppm. Classrooms and meeting rooms reportedly can hit 1000-3000ppm.
Historical CO2 prior to 1950, around 300 PPM. Today, around 400PPM.[2]
One study showed that human decision degraded measurably, around 1000ppm. Human decision making degraded severely, around 2000 PPM.[3] But another study for the US Navy did not confirm this.[4]
This is a very good project. Having independent monitoring of CO2 and CH4 worldwide using the same method will be useful. It's unfortunate it can't get launched sooner, as data trends are very important (or at least, they're very interesting to me as a layperson observer).