NASA’s OCO-2 Carbon dioxide mission in earth atmosphere

Solving earth’s mysteries Presented by science at nasa Earth recently experienced its largest annual increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in at least 2 000 years data from nasa’s orbiting carbon observatory 2 or oco2 which launched in 2014 Are helping scientists understand why? Many factors go into improving long-term climate forecasting Including the study of how how much and where carbon dioxide or co2 is absorbed and emitted by natural processes and human activities At different locations on earth’s surface These exchanges vary from year to year and scientists are using oco-2 data to uncover the reasons Dr. Anne-marie elderine deputy project scientist for oco-2 at nasa’s jet propulsion laboratory explains We already knew that the global amount of carbon dioxide taken up and released by the land and ocean differs each year And that often in el nino years more co2 remains in the atmosphere But this mission’s high precision data on atmospheric co2 across the globe have shown us for the first time How different regions contributed to this phenomenon? And exactly what was driving the change oco 2 data for an el nino event during 2015-2016 Revealed that extra co2 in the atmosphere at that time was caused by releases from south. America africa and indonesia eldering says We saw that each of these regions released more carbon for slightly different reasons different combinations of increased temperatures less rain or more fires Not all of the carbon dioxide emitted into earth’s atmosphere stays there Some of the co2 is absorbed by earth’s oceans natural land sinks also absorb co2 But the amounts of co2 taken up at different locations on earth’s surface are not well understood eldering asks As carbon dioxide continues to build up will the land and ocean continue absorbing it Will natural processes reach a saturation point or will they keep taking up more and more? The many and varied uses of oco-2 data will continue to be essential to understanding the dynamics of carbon dioxide across our planet And will help contribute to improved long-term climate forecasting Since about the start of the industrial revolution We’ve seen co2 levels in the atmosphere increased by about 30 percent human activity Is causing a tipping of the scales this very fine delicate balance that we have And what we call the carbon cycle here the key motivation for the oco3 experiment is to continue this record of carbon dioxide Oco 2 was built the last two years. We’ve had it up there for four years, but there’s always a risk It’s not going to survive. So oc03 goes on the space station in the spring We’d like to have measurements that cover a long duration and oco-3 is going to help add to that record oco 3 is going to specifically produce a data set of carbon dioxide measurements We’d like to be able to keep an eye on this atmospheric co2.

Where did it come from? Where is it going? 04:09 - And how is it related to other global? Processes when plants are doing photosynthesis, they emit a little bit of light and we can sense that light in our measurements So we have a measure of plant photosynthesis activity in combination with the carbon dioxide plants use co2 for growing they absorb it into the leaves they invert co2 and water into sugar that they use To store the energy to grow later the combination of these measurements. Tell us about the relationship between This net uptake of co2 over time and how that is being governed by photosynthesis Oco2 measures every day the same time of day with oco3 on the space station We’re going to sample from sunlight to sun down And so now we can learn about carbon cycle through different parts of the day and that’s really important because plants respond to sun So we need to see them behaving across the day Our team designed and built an agile mechanical actuator that allows oco3 To look at dozens of areas on the globe each day And each of these areas is about 50 miles by 50 miles in size so that allows us to actually focus in on specific areas, maybe urban areas as well as agricultural regions This capability of oco3 to map out some of those areas and start to see some change over time That really is how we are going to advance our understanding and our modeling for the future and understanding of climate For more intriguing discoveries about our changing planet stay tuned to science.nasa.gov You .