{"id":126,"date":"2023-02-03T12:05:01","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T12:05:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/?p=126"},"modified":"2026-01-29T05:04:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T05:04:40","slug":"building-a-bridge-estimating-carbon-dioxide-emissions-using-satellites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/?p=126","title":{"rendered":"Building a Bridge: Estimating Carbon Dioxide Emissions Using Satellites"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>A team of researchers estimated the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from coal-fired power plants and other major anthropogenic point sources in the South African Highveld region using space-based data. The results indicate that the CO2 emissions can be obtained also in challenging cases where the plumes from multiple sources overlap.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The article analyses the emissions of six power stations (Kendal, Kriel, Matla, Majuba, Tutuka and Grootvlei) and the largest single emitter of greenhouse gas in the world, Secunda CTL synthetic fuel plant. The annual CO\u2082 emissions of the Secunda CTL exceed the emissions of several European countries, including Finland, Norway, and Portugal.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Overall, the space-based emission estimates are in good agreement with the emission inventories. Thus, satellite observations can be used for CO<sub>2<\/sub>&nbsp;emission estimation and are particularly useful when no other information is available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 mission operates on the International Space Station (ISS). To support the quantification and monitoring of anthropogenic CO\u2082 emissions, OCO-3 incorporates a new key capability that provides observations in Snapshot Area Maps (SAMs), providing contiguous images over regions as large as 80 km by 80 km in two minutes. Altogether the article analyzes six OCO-3 SAMs jointly with Sentinel-5P\/TROPOMI nitrogen dioxide (NO<sub>2<\/sub>) columns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"964\" height=\"868\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-127\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image.png 964w, https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-300x270.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/image-768x692.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 1362px) 62vw, 840px\" \/><figcaption>Sentinel-5P\/TROPOMI NO\u2082 and OCO-3 XCO\u2082 SAM observations on 21 January 2022.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The new article is a continuation of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/eo4society.esa.int\/2021\/06\/14\/carbon-dioxide-emission-plumes-from-a-large-power-station-detected-from-space\/\">previous work<\/a>&nbsp;where the authors studied the emissions and NOx-to-CO\u2082 emission ratio of the isolated Matimba power station. The article extends the method to challenging cases where CO\u2082 plumes from multiple sources overlap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The applicability of similar emission estimation approaches for future satellite missions such as the Copernicus Carbon Dioxide Monitoring mission CO2M are discussed. CO2M is Copernicus Sentinel Expansion missions and will focus on carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere specifically through human activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The research was carried on at Finnish Meteorological Institute together with colleagues from USRA, Colorado State University and Caltech\/JPL. The Finnish part of the research was supported by European Space Agency (<a href=\"https:\/\/eo4society.esa.int\/projects\/daces-detection-of-anthropogenic-co2-emissions-sources\/\">DACES<\/a>), Academy of Finland (CitySpot,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.helsinki.fi\/en\/researchgroups\/centre-of-excellence-of-inverse-modelling-and-imaging\">CoE inverse<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.acccflagship.fi\/\">ACCC<\/a>) and EU-H2020\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/coco2-project.eu\/\">CoCO2<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The full publication by Hakkarainen and co-authors can be found at the following link:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1088\/1748-9326\/acb837\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1088\/1748-9326\/acb837<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A team of researchers estimated the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from coal-fired power plants and other major anthropogenic point sources in the South African Highveld region using space-based data. The results indicate that the CO2 emissions can be obtained also in challenging cases where the plumes from multiple sources overlap. The article analyses the emissions &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/?p=126\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Building a Bridge: Estimating Carbon Dioxide Emissions Using Satellites&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions\/128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fmi.fi\/coe-inverse\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}