R. Ernst, C. Tobehn, A. Shahsavar, W. Sun, H. Bovensmann, M. Buchwitz, J.P. Burrows, J. Notholt

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) are the most important manmade greenhouse gases (GHGs) which are driving global climate change. Despite their importance, our knowledge about their sources and sinks has significant gaps. Satellites can add important missing global information complementing the measurements of the ground observing network whose coverage is sparse. CO2 monitoring and trading is often based mainly on bottom-up calculations and an independent top down verification is limited due to the lack of appropriate global measurements. Those satellites add important missing information as has already been demonstrated by SCIAMACHY on ENVISAT satellite. Current GHG measurement satellites such as SCIAMACHY and GOSAT have however not been optimized to quantify CO2 and CH4 emissions from localized man-made or natural sources such as power plants or (mud) volcanoes. CarbonSat is first proposed to meet the demand of both higher resolution 2 km² and good coverage (500km). To monitor man-made emissions, global, high frequent and higher spatial resolution measurements are required. The CarbonSat constellation idea comes out the trade off of resolution and swath width during CarbonSat mission definition studies. In response to the urgent need to support the Kyoto and upcoming protocols, a feasibility study has been carried out. The proposed solution is a constellation of five CarbonSat satellites, which is able to provide global, daily CO2 and CH4 measurement with high spatial resolution 2 × 2 km² .The unique global daily measurement capability significantly increases the number of cloud free measurements, which enables more reliable services associated with reduced uncertainty, e.g. better than 1 ppm for CO2 per month in 10km². The CarbonSat Constellation in combination with inverse modelling techniques will be able to provide information services, such as global quarterly CO2 and CH4 regional flux updates, CO2 emission reporting from hot spots such as power plants and CH4 emission reporting from hot spots such as pipeline/oil and gas fields. A central coordination will be set up for the constellation operation, data calibration and data distribution. The proposed approach provides independence for each partner and is financially more feasible. The world wide transparency provided by this forum is critical in supporting Kyoto protocol and upcoming international agreement in man-made Greenhouse emission reduction. The paper first introduce the urgent needs for a global CO2 and CH4 monitoring system and the evolution of the greenhouse gas observation missions which leads to the optimised the design - CarbonSat, and followed with the description of the CarbonSat Constellation design and the proposed products/ services to verify CO2 and CH4 sources and sinks from a constellation of five CarbonSat satellites through a multilateral collaboration.

Deutscher Luft- und Raumfahrtkongress 2010

Conference Paper

englisch

21,0 x 29,7 cm, 9 Seiten

Deutscher Luft- und Raumfahrtkongress Tagungsband - Manuskripte, 2010, 2010, ; S.157-165; 2010; Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt - Lilienthal-Oberth e.V., Bonn

NA

klimawandel, satellit, überwachung, treibhausgase

Bestellbar

2010