NASA has unveiled the US Greenhouse Gas Center during the 28th annual United Nations Climate Conference (COP28).
Built on open source principles, the US Greenhouse Gas Center’s data sets, related algorithms and supporting code are fully open source. This means anyone can test the data, algorithms and results. The center also includes user support and an analysis hub for users to perform advanced data analysis with computational resources and an interactive, visual interface for storytelling.
The center’s data catalog includes a curated collection of data sets that provide insights into greenhouse gas sources, sinks, emissions and fluxes. Initial information on the center website is focused on three areas: estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities; naturally occurring greenhouse gas sources and sinks on land and in the ocean; and large methane emission event identification and quantification, leveraging aircraft and space-based data.
An example of a data set is the methane gas information detected by NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) mission. Located on the International Space Station, EMIT is an imaging spectrometer that measures light in visible and infrared wavelengths and thus can measure the release of methane on Earth.
The US Greenhouse Gas Center will serve as a hub for collaboration between agencies across the US government as well as non-profit and private sector partners. Data, information and computer models from observations from the International Space Station and various satellite and airborne missions and ground stations are now available online.
As the lead implementing agency of the center, NASA partnered with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Institute of Standards and Technology and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Scientists from each of these US federal agencies curated the catalog of greenhouse gas data sets and analysis tools.
The center is part of a broader administration effort to enhance greenhouse gas information, outlined in the recently released National Strategy to Advance an Integrated US Greenhouse Gas Measurement, Monitoring, and Information System.
“NASA data is essential to making the changes needed on the ground to protect our climate. The US Greenhouse Gas Center is another way the Biden-Harris Administration is working to make critical data available to more people – from scientists running data analyses to government officials making decisions on climate policy, to members of the public who want to understand how climate change will affect them,” said NASA administrator Bill Nelson. “We’re bringing space to Earth to benefit communities across the country.”
“A goal of the US Greenhouse Gas Center is to accelerate the collaborative use of Earth science data,” said Argyro Kavvada, center program manager at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We’re working to get the right data into the hands of people who can use it to manage and track greenhouse gas emissions.”
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