DENVER—Scientists at Colorado State University will lead a project using data from a new satellite to determine how carbon dioxide is absorbed by the Earth and the effects on climate change if the absorption tapers off or stops.
A satellite scheduled for launch Tuesday by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will measure carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for the warming climate. Scott Denning, a CSU atmospheric science professor and part of the team, said researchers will use the information to chart where the gas is being absorbed, how it happens and whether the process will continue.
“It makes a huge difference to the future climate whether carbon dioxide goes away or stays put,” Denning said. “The satellite will allow us to make maps of where in the world fossil fuels are going and make predictions.”
The satellite, called the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, and two-year mission will cost NASA about $278 million. It will be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Scientists estimate that 50 percent to 60 percent of carbon dioxide emissions are being absorbed into vegetation or the oceans, in what are called carbon “sinks.”
But oceans can absorb only so much of the gas, Denning said. And plants, which are growing more quickly than they are dying because of increased carbon dioxide, likely will reach a saturation point.
“We have to understand how the sinks work so we can anticipate when the climate might start changing much faster than it’s already changing, and (the satellite) is going to let us do that,” Denning said.
Denis O’Brien, senior research scientist at CSU, said scientists have a good idea of what is happening to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but don’t know the mechanism. He said the data from the satellite will help determine that.
Instruments on the satellite will track carbon dioxide by measuring sunlight that has passed through the atmosphere twice: on its way down to the Earth’s surface and back up to the spacecraft. Certain colors in sunlight are absorbed by carbon dioxide. The differences in how the carbon dioxide molecules absorb the colors will create a pattern that indicates how many molecules encountered the sunlight as it passed through the atmosphere.
Denning, who has been studying climate change for several years, said researchers across the world will use the information gathered by the satellite.
“It’s up to other people to decide what to do with that information,” he added.
