Mapping and monitoring carbon dioxide from space

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a leading greenhouse gas (GHG) and a principal driver of climate change. Measuring, mapping, and monitoring it globally and regionally is key to understanding its dynamically varying distribution. Earth’s temperature is rising to critical levels, largely a consequence of CO2 concentrations rising a decade or more before. Currently, global atmospheric CO2 concentration is above 420 ppm, a level not seen since the middle Pliocene (approximately 3.6 million years ago). The last decade of accumulated CO2 has locked in future global heating, and what was chronic has become critical. Since 2014 a NASA satellite (Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2) has been sensing spatio-temporal CO2 concentrations over much of the globe. Various temporal and spatial filters are used to create critical summary statistics to monitor atmospheric CO2 over more than seven years of observation. This work is joint with Dr Yi Cao, University of Sydney.

Presenter

Noel Cressie FRSN FAA (he/his)
Distinguished Professor and Director, Centre for Environmental Informatics, National Institute for Applied Statistics Research Australia, School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics
Associate Member, Environmental Futures

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