NASA Space Missions Pinpoint Sources of CO2 Emissions on Earth
Researchers can now detect and track carbon dioxide emission changes from a single facility,
Researchers used space-based measurements from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 and 3 missions to quantify the carbon discharged hundreds of miles below at Bełchatów Power Station in Poland.
Between 2017 and 2022, they examined the emission plumes from a number of satellite overflights and discovered changes in carbon levels that were consistent with hourly variations in production.
According to scientists, local-scale variations in carbon emissions may be monitored via space-based observation.
Nasa launched an OCO-2 satellite to map natural and human-made carbon emissions from reasons to continents.
The instrument work on the simple reflection principle the sunlight reflected by the earth is absorbed by carbon present in the atmosphere.
OCO-2’s spectrometers are tuned to detect the specific signature of CO2 gas.
Abhishek Chatterjee, project scientist OCO says, the instrument was designed specifically to detect emissions from individual facilities such as Bełchatów, so the new findings are a surprise.