For the first time, researchers have spotted short-term, regional fluctuations in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) across the globe due to emissions from human activities.
Using a combination of NASA satellites and atmospheric modeling, the scientists performed a first-of-its-kind detection of human CO2 emissions changes. The new study uses data from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) to measure drops in CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 pandemic from space. With daily and monthly data products now available to the public, this opens new possibilities for tracking the collective effects of human activities on CO2 concentrations in near real-time.
Previous studies investigated the effects of lockdowns early in the pandemic and found that global CO2 levels dropped slightly in 2020. However, by combining OCO-2’s high-resolution data with modeling and data analysis tools from NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS), the team was able to narrow down which monthly changes were due to human activity and which were due to natural causes at a regional scale. This confirms previous estimates based on economic and human activity data.
The team’s measurements showed that in the Northern Hemisphere, human-generated growth in CO2 concentrations dropped from February through May 2020 and rebounded during the summer, consistent with a global emissions decrease of 3% to 13% for the year.
The results represent a leap forward for researchers studying regional effects of climate change and tracking results of mitigation strategies, the team said. The method allows detection of changes in atmospheric CO2 just a month or two after they happen, providing fast, actionable information about how human and natural emissions are evolving.
NASA Tracks COVID-19’s Atmospheric Fingerprint
Discerning subtle changes in Earth’s atmosphere
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas present in the atmosphere and its concentration changes due to natural processes like respiration from plants, exchange with the world’s oceans, and human activities like fossil fuel combustion and deforestation. Since the Industrial Revolution, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased nearly 49%, passing 400 parts per million for the first time in human history in 2013.
When governments asked citizens to stay home early in the COVID-19 pandemic, fewer cars on the road meant steep drops in the amount of greenhouse gases and pollutants released into the atmosphere. But with CO2, a “steep drop” needs to be put in context, said Lesley Ott, a research meteorologist at NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. This gas can last in the atmosphere for up to a century after it is released, which is why short-term changes could get lost in the overall global carbon cycle – a sequence of absorption and release that involves natural processes as well as human ones. The lockdowns of early 2020 are one small part of the total CO2 picture for the year.
“Early in 2020, we saw fires in Australia that released CO2, we saw more uptake from plants over India, and we saw all these different influences mixed up,” Ott said. “The challenge is to try to disentangle that and understand what all the different components were.”
Up until recently, measuring these kinds of changes wasn’t possible with satellite technology. NASA’s OCO-2 satellite has high-precision spectrometers designed to pick up even smaller fluctuations in CO2, and combined with the comprehensive GEOS Earth system model, were a perfect fit to spot the pandemic-related changes.
“OCO-2 wasn’t designed for monitoring emissions, but it is designed to see even smaller signals than what we saw with COVID,” said lead author Brad Weir, a research scientist at Goddard and Morgan State University. Weir explained that one of the OCO-2 mission research goals was to track how human emissions shifted in response to climate policies, which are expected to produce small, gradual changes in CO2. “We hoped that this measurement system would be able to detect a huge disruption like COVID.”
The team compared the measured changes in atmospheric CO2 with independent estimates of emissions changes due to lockdowns. In addition to confirming those other estimates, the agreement between emissions models and atmospheric CO2 measurements provides strong evidence that the reductions were due to human activities.
GEOS contributed important information on wind patterns and other natural weather fluctuations affecting CO2 emission and transport. “This study really is bringing everything together to attack an enormously difficult problem,” Ott said.
Taking a closer look at greenhouse gases
The team’s results showed that growth in CO2 concentrations dropped in the Northern Hemisphere from February through May 2020 (corresponding to a global emissions decrease of 3% and 13%), which agreed with computer simulations of how activity restrictions and natural influences should affect the atmosphere.
The signal wasn’t as clear in the Southern Hemisphere, thanks to another record-breaking climate anomaly: The Indian Ocean Dipole, or IOD. The IOD is a cyclical pattern of cooler-than-normal oceans in Southeast Asia and warmer-than-normal oceans in the eastern Indian Ocean (“positive” phase) or the reverse (“negative” phase). In late 2019 and early 2020, the IOD experienced an intense positive phase, yielding a plentiful harvest season in sub-Saharan Africa and contributing to the record-setting Australian fire season. Both events strongly affected the carbon cycle and made detecting the signal of COVID lockdowns difficult, the team said – but also demonstrated GEOS/OCO-2’s potential for tracking natural CO2 fluctuations in the future.
GEOS/OCO-2 data power one of the indicators in the COVID-19 Earth Observing Dashboard, a partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The dashboard compiles global data and indicators to track how lockdowns, dramatic reductions in transportation, and other COVID-related actions are affecting Earth’s ecosystems.
The GEOS-OCO-2 assimilated product is available for free download, making it accessible to researchers and students who want to investigate further.
“Scientists can go to this dashboard and say, ‘I see something interesting in the CO2 signal; what could that be?’” said Ott. “There’s all kinds of things we haven’t gotten into in these data sets, and I think it helps people explore in a new way.”
In the future, the new assimilation and analysis method could also be used to help monitor results of climate mitigation programs and policies, especially at the community or regional level, the team said.
“Having the capability to monitor how our climate is changing, knowing this technology is ready to go, is something we’re really proud of,” Ott said.
By Jessica Merzdorf Evans
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
Last Updated: Mar 31, 2022
Editor: Jessica Merzdorf
So, will the man made CO2 please step forwards so we know who you are.
“This gas can last in the atmosphere for up to a century after it is released, which is why short-term changes could get lost in the overall global carbon cycle”
There you are – it’s really sneaky that anthropogenic CO2 – it hides away waiting to catch you unawares then BAM!
I thought they said CO2 lasts for up to 1,000 years.
I’ve been perusing atmospheric chemistry books written in the 80’s and early 90’s before global warming became popular and the lifetime of atmospheric CO2 is give as about 5 years.
One is in the realm of possibility. One is absurd. You can use the amplitude of the seasonal variation as a direct indication of flows in and out of the system. I don’t recall the exact number I came up with, but let’s call it a half-life of 5 years for this exercise (I think I had a time constant of 6 or 7 years, so close enough…). So if the half life is 5 years, 1000 years is 200 such periods. 1/(2^200)=6.2e-61. At such a rate, in 1000 years, there would be 1.9e-15 molecules left on the planet. In other words, ALL of them would have been absorbed centuries before. I was thinking Susan Solomon was quoting the time to absorb the very last molecule of CO2 on earth (most alarmists would drool over the intellect required by the use of such trickery), but even that calculation could not be correct, it’s wrong by 15 orders of magnitude.
We also know that half of all emitted CO2 is not in the atmosphere in even one year (it gets absorbed in the ocean and biosphere). So is the half-life ONE year? This makes sense to me. In any case, none of this matters. Earth is controlled by albedo, which is controlled due to properties of water that result in condensation and reflection. CO2 could influence that, but the process has 1 million W/m^2 of headroom, compared with 4W/m^2 per doubling of CO2. Wonder who will win that fight?
That is only the new and improved model that costs extra.
Okay sorry it was me … largely because I don’t care.
I also wondered how they knew what CO2 was man-made & what was natural. I also wondered how they knew that CO2 levels were going down in certain areas due to plant absorption. Also, what the hell does;
‘The team’s measurements showed that in the Northern Hemisphere, human-generated growth in CO2 concentrations dropped from February through May 2020 and rebounded during the summer, consistent with a global emissions decrease of 3% to 13% for the year.’
mean, especially ‘consistent with a global emissions decrease of 3% to 13% for the year’?
“OCO-2 wasn’t designed for monitoring emissions”
Oh, OK, so the point of this research is?
“oco” in Portuguese means “empty”…
Presspropaganda releaseHmm, scientists go looking for the CO2 emissions drop that everyone expected to see from COVID lockdowns but suspiciously wasn’t evident, but with the help of ‘models’ they find the signal and everything is as expected.
How convenient that is.
Those last generation models are better…
I’m sorry but it took me several posts after the initial article to stop laughing – I laughed so hard I was crying at one point. What all of this points to is that climate scientists have finally confirmed the ice core data – that CO2 follows temperature with a slight delay; they are just finding out that there is a correlation between temperature and CO2.
For their next highly paid trick they will no doubt produce a lengthy study indicating that it gets dark at night!
Spotted regional fluctations??? how about when the world was locked down, international travel stopped and fossil fuel use plummeted for a year? I wonder if they picked up on these subtle changes?
No dip in the Keeling Curve during the China lockdown.
This is fantastic news from NASA, and just in time for the mid-terms too.
Kind of creepy, having this big eye in the sky spy watching human carbon emissions. I wonder if the New World Order will utilize it to sanction areas of excess carbon emission? What a dust-up and waste of money.
Good thing they aren’t measuring human methane emissions.
There’s a Taco Bell joke in there for anyone who wants it.
Regards,
Bob
Are you sure that isn’t a ‘curry’ joke in there?
Beans getting a pass?
Not according to Mungo.
Gas getting a pass?
No, just a run for your money!
Leave Judith out of this.
Judith Vindaloo?
Or would that be Judith Jal-Ferezi?
“Leave Judith out of this.”
Only you included her. How woke was that?
If they were, they’d have shown a massive methane spike shortly after the traditional Christmas consumption of sprouts!
Good thing they are not tracking Biden. The methane emission would be out of this world.
The toot heard round the world in the presence of HM no less.
I guess that the promoters are eligible for a “defund them” request…
The eye in the sky can not give them the results they wanted so the simply “modeled” it.
Reduced Human CO2 Emissions? They better keep that under their hats.
There was no change in atmospheric CO2 during 2020 or 2021 despite the world economic downturn and decline in human emissions:
Global Monitoring Laboratory – Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases (noaa.gov)
The decline in human emissions was 17% in April 2020:
Untitled (stanford.edu)
The thought bubble that humans are responsible for the increase in CO2 is therefore defeated. As well as this concrete data proof of that fact several papers came out recently showing human emissions are only a small part of the increase in CO2:
World Atmospheric CO2, Its 14C Specific Activity, Non-fossil… : Health Physics (lww.com)
For the first time, researchers have spotted short-term, regional fluctuations in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) across the globe due to emissions from human activities.
Handily marked with a dye or something?
“The signal wasn’t as clear in the Southern Hemisphere, thanks to another record-breaking climate anomaly”
When in doubt blame the weather…
The main trend I’ve spotted with Nasa is
Obama – a definite Earth/Climate focus
Trump – let’s get back out there
Biden – a definite Earth/Climate focus
Can’t stand Musk, but respect to SpaceX.
Even Musk knows the CO2 scam is a scam, he just making money from it.
” Using a combination of NASA satellites and atmospheric modeling ”
More models.
Enough said.
From the article – “Having the capability to monitor how our climate is changing, knowing this technology is ready to go, is something we’re really proud of,” Ott said.
See what was done there? Assume CO2 drives the climate outcome, employ sensors and models targeted at CO2, claim success at monitoring the “climate” by reporting the results. Circular science.
I thought “climate” has to do with such things as temperature and precipitation. Silly me.
It is weather we observe. Climate is a mathematical construct so cannot be directly observed (but can be used to scare the pants off of everyone).
So the science isn’t settled after all.
But the theory is… allegedly.
The main “idea” here:
“However, by combining OCO-2’s high-resolution data with modeling and data analysis tools from NASA’s Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS), the team was able to narrow down which monthly changes were due to human activity and which were due to natural causes at a regional scale. This confirms previous estimates based on economic and human activity data. “
You could gather from this description that Goddard’s ‘GEOS’ is some kind of satellite-based observation platform. But it’s not. It’s just software. It’s merely another alias for ‘reanalysis’ modeling, where the GEOS system ‘observation’ is actually a ‘forecast’, using a model to predict future “observations”.
Of course there is some skill in these models, in the same sense that there is some “modeling skill” in the statement: “Today’s weather will be the same as observed yesterday'”. It works surprisingly well where previous observation and future forecast are in the same place. Not so well when the modeling attempts to extrapolate observations to different geographic locations/environments. We have seen these failures when this kind of ‘reanalysis’ is used to homogenize the weather record, to make it fit the ‘expected’ weather.
Data assimilation is another name for it, which was a “promising” technology decades ago, when it first appeared. But, IMO, it has suffered under bureaucratic and political mismanagement.
https://sos.noaa.gov/catalog/datasets/carbon-dioxide-concentration-geos-5-model/
These scientists are getting better all the time!!!
With OCO-2 satellite taking 16 days to get back to the same spot on earth, and then switching modes so that another 16 days to get back to the starting point.
From a monthly cycle, they generate a moving graphic for public and political consumption that shows ‘clouds’ of CO2 moving on a daily basis.
From monthly data we can now extract daily movement of the surface of the earth!!! That is good!
“The OCO-2 mission plans to alternate between Nadir and Glint Modes over sequential 16-day global ground track repeat cycles so that the entire Earth is mapped in each mode on roughly monthly time scales.”
I forgot to add the /sarc tag for the griffs of this world.
Readings from Mauna Loa are no longer the standard?
Not if they don’t play ball!
Did only the Northern Hemisphere CO2 levels go down in the spring of 2020, but not the Southern? Did the Southern Hemisphere readings also go down in their Winter and Spring? If satellite detection is now available within a month or so, why are we only hearing about reductions in early 2020? Why did summer 2020 show an increase when more lockdowns and work-from-home came into effect after May?
Does “…which agreed with computer simulations of how activity restrictions and natural influences should affect the atmosphere” indicate cognitive dissonance or data and software manipulation, or both?
It takes time to get the computer simulations to give the right answer.
“Scientists can go to this dashboard and say, ‘I see something interesting in the CO2 signal; what could that be?’”
Let me guess-
We need more grants to study this localized dooming?
This localized dooming proves the urgent need for wealth transfers?
It’s worse than we thought?
We only have 10 more years before the tipping point?
The only thing this satellite is good for is proving CO2 is NOT A WELL MIXED GAS … which invalidates any models using co2 as a greenhouse gas …
“For the first time, researchers have spotted short-term, regional fluctuations in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) across the globe due to emissions from human activities.”
But the debate has been over for at least a couple of decades and the human ‘signal’ of CO2 climate effects was supposedly detected some time ago. How does that work exactly?
Haha. Straight from the April 1 toolkit. And you know what’s really funny? If it isn’t a send up and not a 1/4 spoof, then it’s indistinguishable from one. Modelling and Assimilation Office, of Nasa, no less!
So, if we squint hard enough, we rediscover the fact that human CO2 emissions pale in comparison to natural CO2 emissions?
Book idea: NASA – From Rocket Science to Garbage Science; A Sad History.
90% of our CO2 is dissolved in the oceans and when they heat up the CO2 is released and when they cool down the CO2 is absorbed. This is how the planet regulates our CO2 which is vital for green plants to grow – most of the food for all living things !!! Nothing we do can make much of a difference as I am sure most people know our oceans are, something like, TWO-THIRDS of our planet !!!!
The lead sentence in the second paragraph of the above article states:
“Using a combination of NASA satellites and atmospheric modeling, . . .”
I literally stopped reading the article right then and there. I have no wish to listen to hand waving about how a computer model is able to detect that a CO2 molecule is coming from a human source as compared to coming from a natural source.
The NASA instruments don’t have the capability to do such, so it must be those wonderful, error-free atmospheric models that have this capability.
/sarc off.
“Using a handy combination of wishful thinking and blatant lies…..” There – I think I have translated it correctly.
April Fool?
Yes
Oh, here we go… Climate lockdowns.
“The team’s results showed that growth in CO2 concentrations dropped in the Northern Hemisphere from February through May 2020 (corresponding to a global emissions decrease of 3% and 13%), which agreed with computer simulations of how activity restrictions and natural influences should affect the atmosphere.”
NASA is wrong. The 2020 drop in weekly ML CO2 anomalies (next 2 plots) was no worse than the previous large drop in 2019 (thick black arrows) and was really not much different in scale from points A and B, when B occurred before the pandemic If these other big variations can happen as they did without pandemic emissions reductions, then NASA’s study period was also not from the pandemic; no, it was driven by a La Niña colder tropical SST via Henry’s Law:
The reason the weekly ML CO2 anomalies changed from predominately continuously positive in 2019 to more negative and lesser positive peaks in 2020 was the Niño3 anomaly (3rd plot above) fell below average early in 2020, and has stayed mostly below the 25.6°C outgassing threshold I established in 2019:
The Keeling curve is well-modeled by the integration of the area of SST above 25.6°C, because it is measuring the overall effect of ocean CO2 outgassing/sinking. The CO2 trend was driven by the area increase in SST above 25.6°C, and the SST increase, and the corresponding reduction in sinking area below 25.6°C, and it includes unsunk man-made emissions:
“when B occurred before the pandemic”
Correction: “when B occurred after the pandemic”
WooW…. This is rocket science !
Are they saying that they have evidence that CO2 is not “well-mixed?”
I have manually stepped through the CO2 animation provided in the article, paying particular attention to the April time frame when anthropogenic emissions supposedly saw the greatest decline. I’m unconvinced that there is evidence of an obvious correlation between CO2 declines and industrial or metropolitan areas. Instead what seems to stand out is Alaska and what is probably the Ural Mountains in Russia.
The dialog claims a CO2 decline in in the Winter, and an increase in the Summer, in the northern hemisphere. This is the opposite of what is observed from Mauna Loa and other monitoring sites on the ground.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/06/11/contribution-of-anthropogenic-co2-emissions-to-changes-in-atmospheric-concentrations/
The animation does show a spike of CO2 in Australia, but there is no evidence shown that it found its way into the northern hemisphere to increase CO2 levels. The statement is really a non sequitur.
The press release is unconvincing as science. The modeling seems to be taking artistic license with sparse data.
PS: I think that the CO2 spike in Australia does not coincide with the location of the fires. Perhaps one of you from Oz can comment on that.
I’ve updated the first set of images from my earlier comment today, and edited my comment; note the change of second image designations for “A” and “B“:
“The team’s results showed that growth in CO2 concentrations dropped in the Northern Hemisphere from February through May 2020 (corresponding to a global emissions decrease of 3% and 13%), which agreed with computer simulations of how activity restrictions and natural influences should affect the atmosphere.”
NASA is wrong. The 2020 drop in weekly ML CO2 anomalies (next 2 plots) was hardly worse than the previous large drop in 2019 (2nd plot thick black arrows). The periods A,B, & D in the second plot similarly start and end with a positive anomaly that brackets a negative anomaly.
If these other big variations such as in periods A, B, and D can happen as they did naturally without pandemic emissions reductions, then NASA’s conclusion was wrong for it’s study period, the reduction in question also was not from the pandemic; no, it was driven by a La Niña colder tropical SST via Henry’s Law, ie more CO2 sinking, less CO2 outgassing.
Please consult my original comment for the Henry’s Law threshold and model derivation.
NASA Science will soon have the First-of-its-Kind ability, using satellite units, to detect Human and animal fart based-CO2/methane emissions and punish them immediately via facial recognition
I’m putting my money on this being a well-modelled April 1st ‘gotcha’ article. But there IS a Jessica Merzdorf at Goddard and a search shows there IS such a doc on NASA website, so I am puzzled – NASA has a sense of humour?
“providing fast, actionable information”. Actionable information. I take that as a threat.
I just don’t get this. What sort of idiotic idea is that “This gas can last in the atmosphere for up to a century after it is released,…” ? Carbon dioxide is ALWAYS present in the atmosphere. It is continually produced and continually absorbed by the plants. And the plants do not care which molecule came from decomposing organic matter, or from a car exhaust! This sort of rhetoric is pure BS, which has one and only one purpose, which is to make people feel guilty and make them more obedient in excepting the green crap. Carbon dioxide concentrations were many times higher in the past and the planet did not go over this tipping point the warmists are scaring the school kids with. Wake up people! Carbon dioxide is not warming the planet, and we could do with more of it.
At least they will be able to quantify how much co2 is coming out of the 100’s of new coal fired power plants that China is building.
Did anyone detect a reduction in atmospheric temperatures during the last 2 year global lockdown?
No… didn’t think so!
so once again natural fluctuations in ocean cycles is the dominant factor in macro weather
A NASA video which says SFA.
Yet the actual study linked to does not say this, but the opposite:
“Reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions due to COVID-19 shutdowns are expected to reduce the rate at which CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, but not its total atmospheric concentration.“