An Operational Anthropogenic CO2 Emissions Monitoring & Verification System: Baseline Requirements, Model Components and Functional Architecture
In the context of the evolution of the European Union Copernicus programme, the Commission is currently considering to expand its space component with space-borne instruments designed to the monitoring of anthropogenic/fossil CO2 emissions at global scale. This initiative follows from an in-depth analysis of the issue and a series of recommendations elaborated by an international group of world-wide experts in a report produced by the Commission (Ciais et al., 2015).
The objective to endow the European Union with an operational capacity to monitor fossil CO2 emissions supported by a space-based observing system is justified by the significant involvement and leadership expressed by European Union with regard to climate change issues in general and the reduction in Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) emissions in particular. Such an operational capacity will constitute a unique and unprecedented asset to assess, for instance, the impact of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) on CO2 budget therefore to help countries in evaluating the effectiveness of the implementation of their CO2 emission reduction strategies. It shall, on the long term and in some well-identified instances and situations, provide independent evidence on the amount of anthropogenic CO2 emissions reported by national statistical offices and, in particular, help identifying and assessing the uncertainties and gaps associated with these emission inventories. More generally, this large scale initiative will provide the European Union with a more comprehensive and consistent picture on the actual level of emissions and its reductions by all world countries.
The development of such an operational capacity is challenging from an engineering, scientific and technological perspective; it must involve up front European entities, already contributing to the Copernicus programme, currently dealing with the operational processing and analysis of large data streams from in-situ and space-borne observations together with the most advanced interpreting models, tools and techniques. The success of this enterprise is as well conditioned by the readiness to settle the required efforts in the international arena with the related relevant structures and organisations.
Achieving the overarching goal to monitor fossil CO2 emissions crucially depend on a substantial increase in worldwide atmospheric CO2 observations that can be supplied mainly by dedicated satellite sensors. The latter have the potential to routinely acquire relevant observations all over the globe with a density and a periodicity that can be adjusted with a satellite constellation concept that should encompass series of in-situ and space-borne observations made available routinely by international partners. The technological design and capabilities of this space component should allow the European Union, at minima, 1) to verify the trends of the emissions of emitting hot spots at global scale, 2) to detect newly upcoming hot spots such as new oil production sites, 3) to assess whether the global emission reduction promised by the nationally determined contributions is actually measurable in the atmosphere at the global stock take and 4) to acquire uniform, homogeneous and indisputable global datasets made available to monitor man-made CO2 emissions.
PINTY Bernard;
JANSSENS-MAENHOUT Greet;
DOWELL Mark;
ZUNKER Hugo;
BRUNHES Thomas;
CIAIS P.;
DEE Dick;
DENIER VAN DER GON Hugo;
DOLMAN Han;
DRINKWATER Mark;
ENGELEN R.;
HEIMANN Martin;
HOLMLUND Kenneth;
HUSBAND Robert;
KENTARCHOS A;
MEIJER Y;
PALMER Paul;
SCHOLZE M.;
2021-10-15
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC107499
978-92-79-72101-4 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 28736 EN,
OP KJ-NA-28736-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC107499,
10.2760/08644 (online),
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