NASA's U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center was unveiled at the COP28 conference. The center provides open source data and tools for analyzing and managing greenhouse gas emissions and promotes cooperation in the field of climate change.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan and other U.S. government leaders unveiled the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center during the 28th United Nations Climate Conference (COP28) on December 4.
"NASA data is critical to making the changes needed on the ground to protect the climate. The U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center is another way the Biden-Harris administration is working to make critical data available to more people - from the scientists doing the data analysis, to the government officials setting climate policy, to the public who want to understand how climate change will affect them," Nelson said. "We are bringing space technology to Earth to benefit communities across the country."
The U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center will serve as a hub for collaboration among U.S. government agencies and non-profit and private sector partners. Data, information and computer models observed from the International Space Station, various satellite and airborne missions, and ground stations are available online.
As the lead executive agency for the center, NASA works with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Scientific experts from these U.S. federal agencies collaborated to curate this catalog of greenhouse gas data sets and analysis tools.
"One of the goals of the U.S. 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 are working hard to get the right data to the people who can use it to manage and track greenhouse gas emissions."
The center's data catalog includes curated data sets that provide insights into greenhouse gas sources, sinks, emissions and fluxes. The initial information on the center's website focuses on three aspects:
Estimation of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities
Naturally occurring sources and sinks of greenhouse gases on land and in the ocean
Identifying and quantifying large methane emission events using aircraft and space-based data
Methane gas information detected by NASA's EMIT (Earth Mineral Dust Source Investigation) mission is an example of a data set. Located aboard the International Space Station, EMIT is an imaging spectrometer that measures light in the visible and infrared bands, and therefore the release of methane on Earth.
The U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center is based on open source principles and its data sets, related algorithms, and supporting code are fully open source. This allows anyone to test data, algorithms and results. The center also includes a user support and analysis center for users to perform advanced data analysis utilizing computing resources and interactive visualization interfaces. NASA encourages feedback and ideas for the development of the center. The recently released National Strategy for Advancing the Integration of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Measurement, Monitoring, and Information Systems outlines the administration’s broad efforts to enhance greenhouse gas information, of which the center is part.
Compiled from: ScitechDaily