The imaging spectrometer aboard the Carbon Mapper Coalition’s Tanager-1 satellite identified methane and carbon dioxide plumes in the United States and internationally.
Using data from an instrument designed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the nonprofit Carbon Mapper has released the first methane and carbon dioxide detections from the Tanager-1 satellite. The detections highlight methane plumes in Pakistan and Texas, as well as a carbon dioxide plume in South Africa.
The data contributes to Carbon Mapper’s goal to identify and measure greenhouse gas point-source emissions on a global scale and make that information accessible and actionable.
Hopefully “actionable” means that a sister satellite can vaporise the owning company’s ceo and director from orbit, that would be nice.
Holy shit this is huge!
She said
How will the natural gas lobby claim it’s so much better than coal now that we can see methane leaks? NASA doesn’t seem to care about capitalism
But NASA does care about Congress approving its budget requests. And the Republican controlled House and Republican filibustering Senate minority do not want anything done about climate change.
Thus sadly, it may lead to blowback against NASA by the currently insane US right. There’s already talk about elimination of NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration), privatizing its weather forecasting, and restructuring NASA’s Earth observation initiatives that involve climate research.
Regardless of who wins the presidency next month and who has the majority in either house of Congress, the Republican party will try to block such research or dismiss its findings.
If Trump wins, he and his Agenda 2025 cronies (including his VP) will manipulate him to rip anything like this out. Plus Trump’s boss Putin needs to keep selling fossil fuels as the main thing keeping Russia’s economy afloat.
Yes we live in dark and depressing times. Future generations (if they exist and retain historical record) will judge us harshly with good reason, though the ones most likely to survive are the ones selling out our futures now.
But free market freedon fuck yeah we’re fucking free we’re so free to die
Seems like a useful monitoring and accountability tool. :) Especially if its quantity estimates can be made accurate.
Now we can see all the petrochemical companies do crime!
Any chance this is sensitive enough to pick up methane emissions from particularly gassy individuals in their homes? Asking for a friend.
