Using satellite data, scientists have made a trial run to try to figure out how much carbon dioxide is being released and taken away from different countries.
NASA sent out a special satellite to measure how much carbon dioxide is being released and taken in by forests across 100 countries on Earth. This project has given us a better understanding of what each country’s environment is like and it helps the world reach its climate goals.
Scientists studied how much carbon dioxide was released and removed into the atmosphere between 2015 to 2020. They collected data from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) mission and a network of surface-based observations, which they used to measure changes in the amount of carbon dioxide. This method is known as a “top-down” approach because it looked at data taken from the top, then inferred what happened below.
This picture shows how much pollution was made or taken away in over one-hundred countries from 2015 to 2020. Countries with too much air pollution, which are shown in red, look like they are sticking out, while countries that help reduce air pollution, which appear in green, look like they’re more hidden. The cool part is this data was made by NASA!
The OCO-2 mission was able to find information from more than 100 countries, which is great news. Starting in 2023, the world’s progress in trying to keep global warming down will be assessed – this process is called the Global Stocktake.
NASA is making a big effort to help people around the world figure out how much carbon their activities are emitting and how to reduce it. Karen St. Germain, who works for NASA, says that this work will allow governments to measure the positive effects of their efforts to lower emissions. NASA has also come up with lots of ways to make sure that people can measure and track these emissions easily.
When measuring carbon, traditionally scientists use a “bottom-up” approach. This means that they need to count how much carbon dioxide is being released from all different types of activities in an economy (such as transportation and agriculture). Creating these inventories helps us figure out if we are making progress on reducing emissions. However, it takes a lot of resources, knowledge and skills to put together this kind of inventory.
NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio created a visualization that shows the fossil fuel emissions from 2015 to 2020 of more than 100 countries. Here, we can see which countries have higher emissions, indicated by dark red – like the USA and China – and which have lower amounts.
Research scientists think it would be useful to make a database with information about how much carbon is being put into the atmosphere and how much is being taken out. This could be especially helpful for countries that don’t have enough traditional sources of data. The research includes information on more than 50 of these types of countries that haven’t reported their emissions in 10 years or more.
This study shows how much carbon dioxide people in different parts of the world release from burning fossil fuels, as well as how land use affects the amount of carbon stored in plants and soil. In southern countries like Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania, deforestation is causing a huge increase in emissions. On the other hand, countries with better land management practices are reducing carbon output and even creating more storage for it in trees and shrubs.
The writers said that bottom-up approaches to measuring how much carbon dioxide is released or eliminated by ecosystems are very important. But these methods have problems when data is scarce or the net consequences of activities like logging are not clear.
This picture shows how much carbon was held in land plants and soil between 2015 and 2020. Land management practices, including improved care of the land and cutting down trees, especially in warm places like the tropics, influenced how much carbon there was. The data and image were made by NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
Philippe Ciais, from the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement in France, said that our top-down estimates give us an idea of how much is being put out into and removed from the environment. And it’s a good way to see if our bottom-up methods match up with what we’re finding out through this new approach.
Exploring Carbon Levels Through International Missions To Address Climate Change
The study shows that different places on our planet, such as land, oceans and atmosphere are always moving carbon around. Even in areas where humans don’t live – like tropical rainforest and boreal forests – plants can take in some of the carbon from the air which helps to lower temperatures.
Noel Cressie, a professor of University of Wollongong in Australia says that it’s important to know how much carbon dioxide is being released and removed from the environment. He further details that no matter if its coming from deforestation in the Amazon or wildfires in the Canadian Arctic, it will increase the amount of CO2 in the air which can result in climate change. This means that it’s important to consider things like carbon uptake so we know what’s happening.
The researchers said that they can improve their project in the future to learn how air pollution levels change from different countries.
Brendan Byrne, a scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said that making good, steady observations are important for finding out information about climate change. He also continued by saying that watching CO2 levels and other observations from OCO-2 (a satellite) and on land will help us to monitor how well countries are doing with the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change. Lastly, we need more international missions to give more accurate calculations of emissions and removals of various places all around the world.
A group of scientists have researched the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere from 2015-2020 and published their findings in Earth System Science Data journal. The authors, who come from different countries, looked at how much CO2 is produced, where it comes from, and what effect it has on our environment and climate. They used instruments like robotic aircraft to measure CO2 levels in order to get more accurate readings. This research helps us better understand our global climate and make plans for reducing emissions.
The OCO-2 satellite that was launched in 2014 utilizes three cameras that are focused on detecting carbon dioxide by recognizing its unique light signature. These “camera-like spectrometers” measure the amount of reflected sunlight absorbed by a column of air with carbon dioxide, which produces an indirect reading of how much CO2 is present. The project is jointly managed by JPL and Caltech, who work together to help NASA with the mission.
