The Paris Agreement commits countries to keeping the rise in average global temperature below 2 C.
The scale of individual "super-emitters" such as power plants, megacities, refinery, and giant factories will need to be tracked.
The EU plans to launch a pair of satellites in the late 20th century.
It is important proof of principle for CO2M.
Scientists have shown that it's possible to track the source of power plants like the Bechatw power plant in Poland. They used five years of data from NASA's "Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2" (OCO-2; launched in 2014).
The OCO missions were designed to measure carbon emissions at a larger scale.
"Here we show for the first time that it is possible to measure changes in CO 2 emissions from a large power plant, with observations from existing CO 2 - tracking satellites," said Dr. Ray Nassar, an atmospheric scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada, Toronto.
The largest power plant is located in Europe.
The Bechatw power plant is the largest thermal power station in Europe and the fifth largest in the world. Sometimes units are put in service and other times they are taken offline for maintenance. Nassar and colleagues show for the first time that they can detect changes in CO 2 emissions with the help of satellites and instruments.
The 300 meter-high stacks at Bechatw emit CO 2 and are carried by the wind into the sky. Every 16 days OCO-2 passes over Bechatw. OCO 3 passes over or near Bechatw more often. Better local coverage or a wider view can be given by the added capability of OCO 3.
Not every flyby is appropriate.
Satellites can only assess the CO 2 "enhancement" when there isn't a cloud in the sky. The average CO 2 concentration across a column directly below is what they measure.
The CO 2 plume above Bechatw was the site of 10 suitable datasets.
There is an excellent agreement between observed and predicted data.
The estimates for Bechatw's emissions were compared by the researchers. The daily predictions were closely tracked by the measurement. Existing satellites can be used to track emissions in real time. There was a dip in emissions from Bechatw between June and September of 2021.
Allclear for CO2M.
The results show that CO2M, with a joint spatial coverage about a hundred times greater than OCO-2 and OCO 3, will be able to deliver on future needs.
The ability to get the most precise information about CO 2 emissions from'super-emitters' such as the Bechatw power plant will boost transparency in carbon accounting and hopefully, it will ultimately help to reduce these emissions.
This future capacity will lead to improved CO 2 emission information at the scale of countries, cities or individual facilities, enhancing transparency under the Paris Agreement and supporting efforts to reduce emissions causing climate change.
More information: Tracking CO2 emission reductions from space: A case study at Europe's largest fossil fuel power plant, Frontiers in Remote Sensing (2022). DOI: 10.3389/frsen.2022.1028240 Journal information: Frontiers in Remote Sensing
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