Lab participates on GOSAT team for verification science

Lab using its scientific expertise to help enable this monitoring effort.

Artist’s conception of the Japanese Greenhouse Gas Observation Satellite (GOSAT)

Feb. 18, 2010—This is the dawn of a satellite era in which greenhouse gas verification and large-scale carbon sequestration can be used effectively to ensure that the risks of future climate change are managed responsibly and equitably. And Los Alamos National Laboratory is using its scientific expertise to help enable this monitoring effort. An example is its role on the Japanese Greenhouse Gas Observation Satellite (GOSAT) science team.

Manvendra Dubey of the Earth Systems Observations Group of the Lab’s Earth and Envrionmental Sciences Division led a team of Lab scientists, including Petr Chylek of Space and Remote Sensing Sciences and Keeley Costigan and W. Scott Smith of Computational Earth Scieces, who were selected to be on GOSAT team. GOSAT, launched in January 2009, is the first satellite to resolve the spectra of sunlight scattered by the Earth's surface at sufficient resolution to measure global concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane. Accurate measurement and ground-based validation are essential before this valuable new data set can be used to understand global carbon cycle-climate change feedbacks. LANL is the sole DOE national laboratory invited by the GOSAT team to improve their measurements and develop validation protocols. Lab Director Michael Anastasio and the Japanese Space Agency signed a formal agreement to make the GOSAT data accessible to the LANL science team. The Lab scientists can target the GOSAT sensor to specific power plant dominated areas and urban areas to assess its ability to verify greenhouse gas emissions from space.

Dubey's team is acquiring an ultra-high-resolution solar tracking Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS), which can observe atmospheric column composition of gases with unprecedented chemical detail. This is the only transportable field instrument to offer continuous spectral coverage from the long-wave infrared to the ultraviolet. Its high resolution will enable measurement of all greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, water), numerous signature pollutant species (carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, ammonia aerosols) and isotopic variants that can be used to fingerprint carbon dioxide sources and sinks. FTS will be valuable for ground-based validation of data from GOSAT and other chemical sensing satellites.

Dubey represented LANL at a GOSAT science team meeting held in Kyoto, Japan. He led a discussion with NASA, European Space Agency, and Japanese scientists regarding the potential value of satellite sensors in verifying greenhouse gas emissions from industrialized areas. He presented analysis of the Lab's FTS measurements at Los Angeles, which show that the Environmental Protection Agency's derived emission greenhouse gas inventories are too low by 70 percent. Laboratory Directed Research and Development—Reserve Funding (Dubey and Chylek co-principal investigators) supported LANL's emissions verification work in Los Angeles, and the DOE Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research (Dubey, principal investigator and LANL program manager, Climate Observations) funds LANL's new tracking FTS.

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Column averaged dry air mole fraction distribution of carbon dioxide, for the month of September 2009, from the GOSAT observation data.