Co2 Detecting Satellites

[LadyPakal]

Saw a small article in my local rag (Press & Journal) today about NASA & the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency launching 2 satellites which are going to basically scan the earth and give 'region-by-region accounts of Earth's carbon emissions and also highlight areras of the planet absorbing the most CO2'. Data is going to be studied by an Edinburgh Uni team apparently.

Couldn't find an online version of this article but a search brought up this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7769619.stm

Which may be the one of the satellites (OCO) the article was referring to.

There was also this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7839772.stm

Which mentions a Japan satellite (the Gosat).

From the second link (towards the end):

"The primary objective of the OCO mission is to find the CO2 sinks. The primary objective of the Gosat mission is to identify and monitor CO2 sources, to monitor treaty compliance. But Gosat data will also be used to quantify sinks."

[Chris Knight]

Saw a small article in my local rag (Press & Journal) today about NASA & the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency launching 2 satellites which are going to basically scan the earth and give 'region-by-region accounts of Earth's carbon emissions and also highlight areras of the planet absorbing the most CO2'. Data is going to be studied by an Edinburgh Uni team apparently.

Couldn't find an online version of this article but a search brought up this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7769619.stm

Which may be the one of the satellites (OCO) the article was referring to.

There was also this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7839772.stm

Which mentions a Japan satellite (the Gosat).

From the second link (towards the end):

"The primary objective of the OCO mission is to find the CO2 sinks. The primary objective of the Gosat mission is to identify and monitor CO2 sources, to monitor treaty compliance. But Gosat data will also be used to quantify sinks."

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory website is here, and they now seem to have a logo:

What I hadn't realised until recently is that all the carbon sink figures came from computer models - mere guesstimates, and now there is an attempt to get some real data from orbiting satellites to confirm the model results.

[LadyPakal]

Yup - could be interesting - especially as there is a huge amount of CO2 going somewhere they can't account for as yet. This hopefully could provide the answer to where it is going.

p.s. Sorry about the typo in the topic header - I know cobolt has nothing to do with it!

Edited January 27, 2009 by LadyPakal

[Chris Knight]

Yup - could be interesting - especially as there is a huge amount of CO2 going somewhere they can't account for as yet. This hopefully could provide the answer to where it is going.

p.s. Sorry about the typo in the topic header - I know cobolt has nothing to do with it!

It would seem that rainwater with it's normal acidity of about pH5.6 has approximately 10^-5.6moles of carbon dioxide per litre dissolved in it (by chemical equivalence of HCO₃^- and H⁺, and the definition of pH, assuming minimal SO₂ and nitrogen oxides).

Depending on surface temperature, wherever this precipitation lands is the major sink, far exceeding the absorptive surface areas of land or ocean, and probably only matched by the surface area of leaves of photosynthesising land-plants during daytime.

It would be much cheaper (and eco-friendly) to include pH meters in AWS rain gauges, than to send up expensive, fragile satellites to feed data into computer models to guesstimate where the CO₂ goes.

Edited January 29, 2009 by Chris Knight

[LadyPakal]

Not looking too good for the NASA satellite:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7907570.stm

[LadyPakal]

Well, here's one we haven't mentioned before:

http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/...39-0239f7bbc731

'While NASA lost a $285-million US satellite this week, a Canadian microsatellite that does the same job is chugging along happily in orbit --at 1/1,000th the cost.'