New Satellites to Monitor Carbon Emissions From Outer Space

Last month, the Japanese space agency JAXA launched Ibuki, a satellite dedicated to monitoring carbon dioxide and methane. NASA will launch Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) this month for a similar purpose. According to the Economist:

These new satellites will work as carbon accountants, by keeping a close eye on how the Earth breathes and returning regular audits--which are awaited with trepidation. Ibuki, which means "breath" in Japanese, orbits the Earth approximately every 100 minutes at an average altitude of 667km. It will gather data from 56,000 points around the globe with two detectors.

Currently, there are only 260 places on Earth where such data is collected to study global warming. I just wonder why it has taken so long for satellites to dedicated for this purpose, when James Hansen warned us over twenty years ago about climate change.

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Posted by Jennifer Lance at February 12, 2009 1:16 AM