Can we monitor greenhouse gases?
MAR 09, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024144
The Economist : You might think that measuring the global levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would be a priority. If you did think that, though, you would be wrong.No such system exists, because NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory ( OCO), a satellite that would have fulfilled the role, was lost on launch this time last year. The purpose of OCO was to work out the fate of carbon dioxide that is emitted by industrial processes but does not then stay in the atmosphereâmdash;about 60% of the total.America is planning to build a new OCO. In the meantime, however, a small group of scientists are doing their best to monitor emissions at ground level. At the end of February a number of these researchers met at the Royal Society in London , to discuss what they were up to.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
