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The administration of President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has, today, in line with the U.S. commitment to the 2015 Paris agreement, released adequate measures for a national system to monitor, evaluate, and share data helpful for reducing the effect of industrial emissions.
According to the White House Office of Management and Budget, Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Climate Policy Office, the strategy is developed on a range of collective research, data, and activities designed for understanding industrial emissions, sinks and removals of greenhouse gases from all national, regional to Urban levels and other various sources.
Doing what it’s best known for, NOAA is committed to showing ‘state-of-the-art capabilities’ in handling observations, modelling and analyzing data relevant to managing the Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, Carbon Tracker, HYSPLIT dispersion model and satellite remote sensors, to achieve the purpose of the government-new-greenhouse strategy
“NOAA’s more than 50 years of measuring and monitoring greenhouse gas emissions around the globe provide a solid foundation for this new national effort to better understand the main driver of climate change,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, PhD. “Our contributions reflect NOAA’s critical role in observing, predicting and sharing this knowledge with communities to help them build resilience to the effects of climate change.”
The techniques of monitoring and measuring Greenhouse gases can be a very challenging task, which NOAA described as, “Identifying and quantifying emissions of the major greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) — emitted by human activity as well as terrestrial and aquatic landscapes, is a complex challenge that requires direct and indirect measurements, modelling efforts and collection of data across a variety of sectors and systems. Some sources, such as fossil fuel CO2 emissions, can be estimated with high accuracy. Sources of methane emissions, which range from fossil fuel use, to agriculture, livestock, landfills and wetlands, are more variable and make estimates challenging.”
Speaking on its competency, NOAA said that it “is a leading international authority on atmospheric and oceanic in situ GHG measurements. NOAA’s observational networks range from global to regional to local, and include ground-based, tower-based, and airborne measurements of atmospheric GHGs, as well as surface and subsurface ocean carbon measurements from ships, buoys and other autonomous platforms.”
Working collectively with other qualified agencies, “NOAA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have played a critical role in standards development and calibration of GHG sensors, benefiting domestic and international GHG monitoring and measurement efforts. NOAA satellites monitor global GHG concentrations in the free troposphere. When combined with in situ observations and models such as CarbonTracker, they advance the understanding of GHG fluxes and sinks.”
Meanwhile, in its professional effort “For monitoring facility-level leaks of methane, NOAA is working with NASA’s Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition Program to develop and demonstrate operational capabilities.”
According to NOAA, “Sarah Kapnick, Ph.D., NOAA’s chief scientist, said the national strategy is important for mitigating the effects of climate change, and for capitalizing on the opportunities that will be presented by the shift to a clean energy economy.”
“The path laid out today — maximizing the sustained observations and monitoring that are already underway while we work together to develop improved tools in the future — will strengthen our understanding of the carbon cycle, support the national economy and help us achieve our climate goals,” she said.
Addressing one of its identified goals within the first phase of the strategy, NOAA Said, “One of the initial goals identified in the national strategy is the development of prototype urban-scale operational GHG monitoring systems led by NOAA and NIST covering the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore and Indianapolis metro regions.
“The prototypes will combine “top-down” atmospheric measurements with “bottom-up” emissions inventories for whole and sub-city emissions. It will integrate existing surface and regional networks with airborne data collection and activity-based, fossil fuel CO2 and methane emissions data systems with new and expanded observing capabilities. Work on an operational urban-scale GHG monitoring system in the D.C.-Baltimore region is already underway using existing assets.
Typically emissions estimates are posted only once a year. The new approach will increase that to biannual or quarterly updates, which will help regional and local planners and federal agencies monitor and verify their GHG emissions mitigation plans. Lessons learned from the prototype will help subsequent efforts to scale up the information system, as well as shape more useful GHG emissions information products and modeling of emissions from urban areas.
The national strategy also calls for the development of a virtual U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center to better coordinate the nation’s GHG information delivery and stakeholder engagement. The center, initially led by NASA, NIST, NOAA and the Environmental Protection Agency, will compile greenhouse gas data from observations and models in an interactive site that can be used to enhance coordination and facilitate GHG data and modeling capabilities among federal agencies, international partners and commercial providers.
This initial two-year demonstration phase creates a way to explore and analyze U.S. government and other datasets, focusing on three areas of greenhouse gas research : human-caused GHG emissions, natural GHG sources and sinks and methane emission leaks from large events.
In addition, demonstration efforts will target opportunities to gather more GHG information from agricultural activities, energy, waste and natural systems. Some of the efforts will focus on methane detection and quantification, recognizing significant demand and opportunities at the state and federal levels to mitigate methane emissions consistent with the U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan.”
