Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
One of the most reliable tells in the climate shell game is a government program with a name that promises “carbon” and delivers something suspiciously less concrete. Enter the OCO satellites—Orbiting Carbon Observatories, which, right off the bat, don’t actually measure “carbon.” They measure CO₂. It’s like opening a box labeled “Mystery Steak” and finding tofu.
If you want a tale of cosmic hubris stitched to pure bureaucratic ambition, look no further than NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellites—OCO by name, not by actual carbon content. These polished tin cans were launched to spy on atmospheric CO₂ from space, the latest chapter in humanity’s endless fantasy that, if we just measure nature sharply enough, we might finally drag the carbon cycle kicking and screaming under bureaucratic control.
The original OCO was a flame-out before the party started—launched in 2009, it belly-flopped into the Southern Ocean. NASA called this a “launch vehicle anomaly”—which is bureaucratese for “the thing blew up.”
Then, like every Hollywood flop, we got the sequel: OCO-2, plucky and determined, rising phoenix-like in July 2014. Imagine NASA muttering “this time for sure” and clutching its high-resolution spectrometer like a blackjack player eyeing his last stack of chips.
What does OCO-2 do? It chases reflected sunlight—zeroing in on those precise, CO₂-hungry wavelengths the gas loves to slurp up. With this, OCO-2 pulls the ultimate global neighborhood watch: polar sun-synchronous orbit, meaning it goes pole to pole, day after day, circling the globe every sixteen spins of the Earth. The result? Near-global selfies of the planet’s every atmospheric sigh, with precision down to less than one part per million. Yes, it picks out the smallest seasonal burp in CO₂ from the leafy lungs of the world; yes, climate modelers treat its graphs like sacred runes; no, it won’t find your missing car keys.
And then came OCO-3—the inevitable space family photo. Shuttled up to the International Space Station in 2019, this cousin gets to peek sideways, take “action shots” in new viewing geometries, and basically try angles even OCO-2 didn’t dare. Think of it as the satellite version of a go-pro on a skateboard: more, more, always more coverage.
So the OCO saga rolls on—a dazzling dance of technical triumphs, fizzled launches, and a hope bordering on superstition: if we can just catalog the ghostly flux of carbon well enough, maybe we’ll wrestle the climate into submission. It’s noble, in a way. Or maybe it’s just expensive performance art for an audience allergic to low budgets and short stories. Either way, it’s one hell of a ride—assuming you’re not footing the bill.
Now, with the Trump Administration threatening to pull the plug on OCO, the usual suspects are sounding the klaxons—“Catastrophe! The data! The lost science!” Yet, I did what apparently nobody at NASA, NOAA, or CNN ever attempts: I actually looked at what the satellites have coughed up, and whether anyone—any actual person, business, or government—has found these cosmic spreadsheets useful outside of tenure applications and conference circuit PowerPoints.
First, let’s take the case most likely to give the climate alarmists the vapors: a real, honest-to-god, peer-reviewed study that used OCO data to figure out how much more corn, soy, and wheat the Midwest is pumping out thanks to the CO₂ “fertilization effect.” The math, by Taylor and Schlenker, goes like this: for every 1 ppm rise in CO₂ measured from space, corn yields go up 0.5%, soybeans 0.6%, wheat 0.8%. Over the last decade, thanks in part to 20 ppm worth of bonus CO₂, global farmers collected an extra $71.7 billion worth of food, including $4 billion a year for U.S. corn alone. If you’re a wheat farmer, this is the part where you lift your hat and say “Thanks to fossil fuels for all the carbon dioxide!”
But here’s the rub. These dollars aren’t landing in anyone’s account because of OCO. They’re landing because… well, CO₂ went up. The OCO satellites simply told us, after the fact, how green the grass grew. Their role is “observer,” not “rainmaker.” If you’re waiting for a case where a power utility, a city, a trader on the CBOT, or even a budget-stressed county extension officer flipped through OCO’s gigabytes and made a buck, I hope you packed a lunch and a good book.
The supposed “applications” for OCO-2 data beyond academic joyrides? They’re a gospel of indirectness. “National carbon accounting.” “Large-scale scientific assessments.” “Paris Agreement verification.” “Model input.” If you boil this all down, what you get is more paperwork, higher-resolution graphs, and the chance for government ministries to add another decimal point to emission numbers with satellite snapshots. The impact on your life, the price of your groceries, or the peril to your electrical grid? Round off to zero.
Best I can tell, not a single primary source—not NASA, not peer-reviewed journals, not the Paris Agreement’s own secretariat—documents any organization, utility, or corporation making a real-world, real-money decision using OCO data. Every “benefit” is hypothetical, every “application” is a footnote for a climate negotiation PowerPoint, and every stakeholder story ends a step before anything actually happens.
So when the media lights up with righteous indignation about the imminent unplugging of the OCO satellites, it’s not because the world stands to lose operations, dollars, or even actionable knowledge. It’s because a lot of institutional, academic, and consulting interests stand to lose a reliable grant generator—a justification parade for more “urgent” research, more staff, more servers buzzing away in the service of an endless, mostly circular, pursuit of “climate verification.”
Could I have missed a secret billion-dollar industry quietly built on real-time OCO data? Well, sure. And if those unicorns take up day-trading next week, I’ll issue an apology.
Until then, the obvious answer is: if a satellite’s only measurable benefit is keeping research staff busy and PowerPoint decks vivid, it’s better to let the thing burn up, let the lights go out at OCO HQ, and see if maybe, just maybe, someone finds a direct use for satellite data that isn’t another exercise in scientific navel-gazing. Otherwise, call it what it is:
A very fancy, very expensive cosmic spectator sport.
My very best regards to all of you on a lovely summer morning,
w.
My Usual Request: When you comment, please quote the exact words that you are referring to. It avoids endless misunderstandings.
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Ah, Willis–this has got to be one of your best commentaries—needed a good chuckle.
I liked your reference to “actionable knowledge. I worked for a large company that liked statistics. or “beans” as we called them. When we were asked to find ways to streamline our processes, I started asking, “What decisions are being made from these numbers?” I would get blank stares. I got nowhere.
NASA has always been more interested in advancing technology than providing useful results, but Saving The Earth helps generate government funding, so that helps sell missions. I remember the AIRS Team scientists complaining to me that OCO wasn’t going to do any more that what AIRS could do, which is why the CO2 map you show looks suspiciously like the AIRS maps from 20+ years ago.
Since Mars is so far away and nothing inspired returning to the moon, NASA was looking for missions. I can’t really blame them for trying CO2. IF they’d hired more youth instead of curating their ingenius dinosaur collection they’d have a better shot at identifying the next trend.
Google AI was vaguely helpful in this angle.
“The average age of NASA engineers is not explicitly stated in the provided search results, but they indicate a range of ages and trends. One source states the average age of NASA scientists and engineers is 45.8. During the Apollo 11 mission, the average age of NASA engineers was 28. In 2009, the average age was reported to be 47. Additionally, nearly 40% of NASA’s science and engineering workforce is 55 or older.
The moon landing generation did not train understudies – smart guys with 10 years in the same system become priceless in a tribal-knowledge problem solving arena. The next generation figured it out themselves, but felt threatened by global outsourcing and found the concept “lifetime job” to be as antiquated as “defined benefit retirement plan”. They were even less friendly to young whippersnappers.
That giant sucking sound you might have heard was the current USA generation of degreed engineers watching their tuition funds get sucked into a Chinese coal plant.
Point of all that was: NASA got caught up in this BS due to cultural externalities.
Also:
“In contrast to NASA, SpaceX’s workforce is notably younger, with an average age well under 30.”
They’ll have to re-learn much of the same s%$&%*, but they’re probably smart too.
You should check out my movies of the OCO-2 data:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/12/01/carbon-dioxide-movie-night-the-global-picture/
Was curious, so looked up the OCO-2 ‘team’ at JPL. 15 named leaders, and a 2011 team portrait showing (by my rough count) 83 team members. A DOGE target for sure.
Typically, when they take team photos here they include anyone that even had a whiff of anything to do with the mission. When a mission goes into ops, the number of people actually working the project drops significantly.
Without knowing how much design work was contracted out, it is difficult to determine if the staff size is reasonable.
“…whether anyone—any actual person, business, or government—has found these cosmic spreadsheets useful outside of tenure applications and conference circuit PowerPoints.” That probably describes 95% of government funded research.
97%.
You used the wrong number. 🙂
Eviscerating article on the futility of government spending for climate research. 😃
They should have just asked Greta. She could “see” CO2.
Senator Debbie Stabenow can detect global warming with her derrière.
Must be a frosty reception
How does she get past the methane?
One of the frustrating things about the OCO satellites is how little press they’ve gotten, especially OCO-2 because we were really curious about what it might show. Here are several references to the OCO program at other WUWT posts.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/20/agu14-nasas-orbiting-carbon-observatory-shows-surprising-co2-emissions-in-southern-hemisphere/
Well, it sounded promising: The early OCO-2 data hint at some potential surprises to come. “The agreement between OCO-2 and models based on existing carbon dioxide data is remarkably good, but there are some interesting differences,” said Christopher O’Dell, an assistant professor at CSU and member of OCO-2’s science team. “Some of the differences may be due to systematic errors in our measurements, and we are currently in the process of nailing these down. But some of the differences are likely due to gaps in our current knowledge of carbon sources in certain regions — gaps that OCO-2 will help fill in.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/04/finally-visualized-oco2-satellite-data-showing-global-carbon-dioxide-concentrations/
Erik Swenson got annoyed enough at the lack of results to generate his own imagery. He did well!
Issue – most links to his images may require both login and editing of the URL, the URL
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/clip_image0061.jpg
will redirect to
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/clip_image0061.jpg
but won’t work until the “wordpress.” is removed, i.e.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/clip_image0061.jpg
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/04/oco-2-orbiting-carbon-observatory-2-the-mission-has-released-an-animation/
Issue – the animation URL is https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/excitement-grows-as-nasa-carbon-sleuth-begins-year-two, but that reports “The cosmic object you were looking for has disappeared beyond the event horizon.” I do have a YouTube link that may be the same thing. I also praise the New Horizons Pluto flyby folks – their page is still there, and it’s been updated several times since my post.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/12/01/carbon-dioxide-movie-night-the-global-picture/
A couple of years ago, Chris Hall got annoyed at the data stream, noting “Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places, or maybe the researchers are unusually shy. In any case, I decided to have a look at some of the data myself.”
Along the way, he found “many transient positive and negative concentration anomalies in the Pacific and Arctic.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/20/first-data-from-nasas-oco-3-mission-co2-i-see-you/
OCO-3 lives! We haven’t heard much about it, but I haven’t looked much either.
The page offers the URL https://ocov3.jpl.nasa.gov/ which works. Good luck finding useful data there. The top of the page says “NASA is seeking submissions for partnerships for the continued operations and data collection of the OCO-3 mission.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/08/nasa-satellite-offers-urban-carbon-dioxide-insights/
“Atmospheric scientists Dien Wu and John Lin of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City teamed with colleagues at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor” to look at urban data. Apparently this is OCO-2 data.
They discovered “carbon dioxide emissions for 20 major cities around the world provides the first direct, satellite-based evidence that as a city’s population density increases, the carbon dioxide it emits per person declines, with some notable exceptions.” Ah well, confirming hypotheses is part of the Scientific Method.
Alternatively, I’d say:
“I’ll take ‘stating the bleeding obvious’ for $1,000”
I recall that Aldo Leopold [Sand County Almanac, 1986] had a section on the travels of a Carbon atom (if not C, some other element) as it traveled through the environment. I gave my copy away, so can’t check. Likely this 320 page book has been a better investment than the OCO Satellites.
My most lasting impression about the OCO-2 mission was the lack of coverage of the data from the mission once it became obvious that natural processes caused more of the change in CO2 concentration than human caused processes.
The takeaway from Willis’s reporting of crop yields versus CO2 implies that crop yields would be half of what they are now (or less) if CO2 was at the 280ppm “pre-industrial level”. This raises the question of what is the optimum level of CO2.
The very first question should have been “what is the optimum level of CO2.“
The second question is what is the optimum temperature for the globe or alternatively for the various climate regions?
The third question is, are we progressing towards an optimum temperature [y/n]?
The very first question about CO2 is: Why?
Thank you for bringing OCO II up to date. The previous three articles are now 8-11 years old, and needed the update.The Orbiting Carbon Observatory I, and II, and III (3) are examples of the power of the word ‘climate’ to expend large sums of money. JPL had to get in on the gravy train. The designers and operating crew have now a lifelong sinecure. The technology used is not innovative, just a typical spectrometer doing typical spectrometer work. The motivation was to locate the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide, thus the acronym – OCO – a transliteration of CO2, the main object of measurement. The observational problem is to separate large daily/annual variations from very small net uptake, small in the sense that 15-18 billion tons annually is small – that amount is the source of the ‘greening of the Earth”. To date, more than 10 years in, the OCO mission goal has not been achieved (Grok differs with me on this). The weeds are very thick, as you note, on this one, but you can, at least, admire persistence.
The OCO data have been included in my climate lectures for over a decade now. OCO II has produced ONE important result. A figure is attached: a comparison of the observed CO2 distribution and the climate model predicted distribution of CO2 anomaly.
You will note the question in white letters across the middle. “Are Model Predictions and the OCO-2 data the same”? I aligned the OCO data with the models, at the same scale and outlined Australia and the Americas in white, so comparison is easy. My students look at these and immediately say “The red parts are in different places”. The main CO2 concentrations are located along the equator, and are due to a natural process – bio-decomposition and respiration in rain forests. The huge concentrations in the models are located directly over the industrial north. The CO2 distribution from climate models is the opposite of the observations and is wrong. This dichotomy is completely ignored in the OCO analyses. That is not a surprise. The measurements do not fit the narrative and are ‘that which shall not be mentioned’. One does not bite the hand that feeds you. The scientists and engineers at JPL are doing what they were hired to do, and are continuing to do it every day as the missions continue. The result is interesting. It is what any competent biologist will tell you: the biological exchange of carbon (as carbon dioxide) of the biosphere dwarfs the human addition of CO2 via combustion of ‘fossil’ fuels. That was measured decades before OCO II was launched, and OCO II has confirmed it again at a total cost now of about 1 $billion for the three missions. GROK gave me the total cost figure, but tells me the missions are easily worth the cost, quoting the usual suspects which are all GROK has to read.
One question: Are the color gradients the same for both? Same scale, etc.?
Supposedly, NASA AIRS measures almost the same data. Any similar pictures from AIRS?
Oh, very well said, WH. I stole your graphic. Thanks.
w.
I think I’m correct that Envisat (2002-05) had the much same embarassing problem…measured methane did not come from those areas of the globe with the most ruminants as predicted by all the models. Thus it’s data has been totally ignored or disappeared too. The money NASA has spent to prove us skeptics to be correct is amazing!
Tasmanians are up in arms after being left off of your ‘Australia’ outlining.
There should be t-shirts (and/or very large billboards) promoting your graphic
So it sounds like the expectation was OCO data would provide a cudgel to beat the fossil fuel industry with in court. But in reality it provided vindication. How very disappointed the alarmist must be. Who would have thought that so much CO2 would emanate from the poor undeveloped global South and not the industrial North.
Try challenging Grok with counter evidence and see how it responds.
Surely having utterly disproved the modelling the satellites have been a very worthwhile investment? Or at least they would be once the science if forced to recognise the truth.
NOTE: It’s Mystery Meat, not Mystery Steak.
I was a supply clerk on a carrier. Way I heard it was that an EA-6B went down, four dead aviators. Helo sent out went down, now six dead aviators. They brought the bodies back to the ship, kept them in the meat reefer until we got back to port. You can imagine the jokes.
“I musta got a chief, this one’s so tough.”
“I think I got a jarhead’s leather neck.”
“At least there wasn’t time for scab steak.”
Mystery meat was mainly associated with Chinatown fare.
Not on the ship when I was in. If it wasn’t SOS or scab steak, it was mystery meat.
This is an excellent candidate to rebut idiots who worship the god “Basic Research”. I run into them all the time, and they get boring real fast. “But science is built on basic research!”
No it isn’t. These OCO satellites are a perfect example of everything that is wrong with government funding of science.
NASA Reportedly Ordered To Destroy Important OCO Satellite
…
NASA is currently seeking private funding to keep the instrument attached to the ISS running after US funding dries up
https://apple.news/AVyquKTODRZGg9iBhT3hVdA
and once more the foundational assumptions of ALL the models that CO2 is a well mixed gas is proven to be false …
Think of all the graduate students thinking “I could make a better model than this if he’d let me update the code” but they don’t want to start an argument that endangers their path to PhD
(a few of them might actually be able to do it)
While Willis’ posting suggests that no one is using the data being gathered for anything useful, I’m personally of the mind that I’d much rather pay for data gathering than modeling. For example, perhaps someone could find a way to measure atmospheric H20 on an ongoing basis which may be useful for cracking the nut on cloud coverage.
Of course the data can be misused by bad actors but that’s not about the data its about the bad actors.
I say cut the funding on all the modeling work since that is already demonstrated to be controlled by bad actors & is entirely useless for any purpose at this time.
Can’t agree more about the modeling.
w.
Obviously CO2 is well mixed in the atmosphere.
Got it.
Very nice Willis.
Yet another entertaining an informative post by Willis – thank you very much! A point I try to make with true believers is that the entire globalclimatewarmingchange narrative boils down to “if we can control co2, we can control the climate”. It’s absurd on it’s face, yet too many simply believe it without a second thought.
Willis, you are naïve.
When a data gathering system gets no press it doesn’t mean the data is not being used.
It means it is being used and the users don’t want to share what they are finding.
Useless systems are hyped up to justify the next one. They have to be.
OCO2 worked but no-one talked about it. Yet it still got a sequel. Lucky that.
These satellites let us know where industry, settlement and high energy use is taking place.
In other words, where China is building it’s most secretive military and economic centres.
They even cover the Ocean surface.
Cutting this is like cutting the CIA or USAid. It’s weakening the West.
At least the last senile stumbler had competent handlers.
Thanks, M., interesting. I find the following.
Best to you and yours,
w.
===
Limitations in Detecting Secret/Military Installations
Current literature clarifies that while OCO-2 and similar satellite missions can detect localized enhancements of atmospheric CO₂ consistent with high energy use or industrial output, they are not designed or optimized to identify the specific function, ownership, or covert status of emission sources.
CO₂ plumes observed by satellite may indicate the presence of an active industrial or energy-generating facility, but satellites cannot distinguish between civilian, commercial, or secret/military operations based solely on atmospheric signatures [[Wunch et al., Remote Sensing of Environment, 2019]].
Furthermore, secret or military installations sometimes undertake emission control strategies—such as localized CO₂ capture or use of underground facilities—that can mask their true emission output and location from spaceborne sensors.
Established countermeasures may include spatial dispersion of sources, camouflage, or operation timing designed to coincide with satellite overpasses that are less frequent, further hampering detection.
Academically reviewed sources consistently state that despite advances in satellite resolution and analytic techniques, reliably discriminating secret/military sites from civilian ones, or identifying clandestine facilities solely via atmospheric CO₂ concentration data, remains beyond current capabilities.
Comprehensive verification would require integration with ground-truth investigation, additional remote sensing modalities (e.g., thermal, radar), and auxiliary intelligence data sources [[Reuter et al., Environmental Science & Technology, 2019]].
But here’s the real problem for their use as you suggest. OCO-2 and OCO-3 satellites are capable of detecting and quantifying carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from large individual combined-cycle and coal-fired power plants. However, the smallest plant size that these satellites can reliably detect is limited by their spatial resolution, sensitivity, revisit frequency, and atmospheric conditions.
Peer-reviewed studies and recent meta-analyses have found:
Summary: Current OCO missions can reliably detect only the largest combined-cycle (or coal-fired) power plants—those with emissions typically above 8–10 million metric tons CO₂ per year (often 900–1,000 MW capacity or greater). Smaller plants generally fall below the detection threshold under most practical conditions.spj.science+1
Future satellites with finer spatial resolution and improved sensitivity will likely reduce this threshold within the next decade, but as of now, OCO cannot reliably detect CO₂ emissions from the majority of smaller, distributed combined-cycle power facilities.
Thank you for the reply.
As well as my original argument about why data that isn’t publicised is being used I have some further points in response to your, very well researched and detailed, answer to me.
1) Yes, on it’s own it cannot tell what is causing the emissions. But knowing where to go look is important in itself.
2) These satellites are not looking down once and moving on; they are not sentries watching for changes in the field. They cannot spot mobile plants – not even aircraft carriers. But the resolution is restricted largely by “wind speed, satellite track alignment, and atmospheric turbulence“. And these factors do vary while the location of a new industrial complex… does not. If it only pings once every 10 passes, you have a dozen pings a year.
3) “Furthermore, secret or military installations sometimes undertake emission control strategies—such as localized CO₂ capture or use of underground facilities—that can mask their true emission output and location from spaceborne sensors”. So they think it’s a plausible threat. Why else would they sometimes take counter-measures?
The satellite, OCO-2 was placed into a POLAR orbit, meaning it goes over the poles.
So why does the data NOT cover the poles?
Is there more to the story than NASA wanted to show?
The trump administration continues to try to limit information to push a false agenda. Deniers have never cared to learn and so cheer on the destruction of knowledge
Eric, there is information, and then there is useless information. You cannot point to one way that the information gathered by the OCO satellite has improved your life.
Meanwhile, you (and millions of others) are studiously ignoring a critical situation:
We are not only broke.
We are not only broke and way over budget,
We are broke, way over budget, and over our heads in debt.
We need to cut everywhere, starting with very expensive programs that provide … well …
Nothing.
w.
PS—Anyone calling someone a “denier” is a coward who is trying to discredit an opponent by attacking them WITHOUT dealing with their scientific claims. It’s just name-calling.
The only valuable use of the term is to reliably identify those people whom anyone can ignore without remorse or error.
Willis,
There would appear to be a lot of government spending to cut before getting down to the level of the OCO satellites. Especially since they have already been launched and the running cost is very small. In contrast the US is planning to spend $2 trillion on its F-35 program which is likely to be completely useless and will be surpassed by cheaper unmanned drones. See
https://www.gao.gov/blog/f-35-will-now-exceed-2-trillion-military-plans-fly-it-less
The US’s military budget is rapidly approaching $850 billion per year and is the largest
portion of the discretionary budget. If the US was serious about making cuts to the budget then that is where it needs to start. But instead the current administration wants to increase the military budget, reduce taxes and increase the deficit. NASA’s budget is tiny
in comparison.
Thanks, Izaak. I agree that there are many larger programs that need cutting. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t cut the smaller ones.
Also, if I’m armed with unmanned drones and you have fighter jets and bombers, I’m not betting against you if we fight it out.
Best to you and yours,
w.
Willis,
cutting smaller items is meaningless if the overall spending is increasing. Trump’s administration is proposing to increase the defence budget by 13% to 1.01 trillion. To put this in context the next highest military budget is China with a budget of 314 billion and then Russia (who is actually fighting a war) with 149 billion.
In comparison keeping the OCO satellites running will cost $15 million a year which is about 0.001% of the defence budget. So the question would be if you want to balance the budget (and nobody in Washington appears to want to do that) should you start with the biggest items or the smallest?
Thanks, Izaak. Every dollar saved is a dollar saved. And yes, we need to cut the defense budget, absolutely, along with dozens of other programs..
As to where to start cutting, I’d start cutting everywhere. Among others, I’d start with programs that have no deliverables … and the OCO satellites are certainly in that category.
If I ran the zoo, to start with I’d put a 20% cut on every single program, department, and section of the government. There’s not one part of the government that doesn’t have AT LEAST 20% fat.
And the OCO program is on that list. Seriously, what good is it? What has it done for the citizen in the street?
w.
Willis,
the OCO satellites have clear deliverables. They detect concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere and provide that data to scientists. Looking at google scholar over 1000 papers have been published this year alone that uses that data. Some if not most of those authors would be US citizens so it is clearly providing something of value for some citizens in the street.
Alternatively think of the CERES data that you frequently use. You appear to get some enjoyment out of analysing that data and might want to claim that it is good value. The OCO data provides similar value but to different people. The fact that you don’t see the value in it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have value to others.
Finally my view would be that there is a huge difference between sending up new satellites and keeping the old ones running. Maintaining the OCO satellites can be done with minimal expenses and allows the government to maximise its return on investment. Deliberately destroying the satellites (which is what is being proposed) is a waste.
Thanks, Izaak. I didn’t say they don’t have deliverables. Mice have deliverables. They deliver mouse sh|t. I said their deliverable are not providing monetary value to the citizens. If you think they are, please specify who is getting how much $ in value from the OCO satellites.
Second, as Dr. Roy pointed out above,
Finally, yes, keeping the satellites running would be cheaper than sending up new ones. But you are claiming that would “maximize the return on the investment”, so I ask again …
… what return?
What NEW benefits will accrue from keeping them in orbit that we didn’t learn from AIRS and the previous years of the OCO? More pretty graphics?
w.
Has any of the satellite data been quoted in the recent critiques of the EPA endangerment finding? If so, the benefit could be substantial when that is removed.
I think the question that you need to answer is “What do you expect to learn from spending another $15 million on the program?” If nothing that we don’t already know, then why spend it?
Thanks, Clyde. That was my exact point.
w.
You want learn from it so it is useless to you. Trying to limit knowledge about the world to push an agenda
I think you mean “You DON’T want TO learn from it so it is useless to you”. What is there to learn that does any of us any good?
As to your claim that it’s “Trying to limit knowledge about the world to push an agenda”, again I say what I said above. “You cannot point to one way that the information gathered by the OCO satellite has improved your life.”
And as your reply has shown, my claim is true.
w.
PS…anyone calling someone a coward instead of respond to their points can be ignored
Eric, Willis is not the most civil commenter. Nor the most scientifically or mathematically literate, although Willis’ response to anybody who shows an insufficiently worshipful attitude is to launch an ad-hominem attack, threaten to ban them, demand that they “Shape up or ship out”, or similar childish expressions of hurt feelings.
It doesn’t matter – Willis believes in the mythical GHE, even though he can’t describe it. It’s a pity he’s not as passionate about the scientific method.
To each his own.
Michael, if you have any objection to any of the claims I made, now would be the time to bring them out.
But since so far all you are doing is once again standing on tiptoe to try to bite my ankles …
Pass.
w.
Eric, you say:
I responded to every one of your points. My calling you a coward was in a PS, and is well deserved.
w.
And you have appointed yourself of the arbiter of who can safely be ignored, have you?
Your credo relating to anyone who disagrees with you seems to be “Shape up or ship out”, as you have expressed so elegantly, when you were unable to justify something you had written.
Why not just accept the dictionary definition of denier? It’s a perfectly valid English word, and your proposed usage does not appear in any dictionary of which I am aware.
Michael, you say:
Nope. Just expressing my opinion.
But hey, if you wish to pay attention to folks whining about “deniers”, be my guest.
w.
Willis, you wrote –
As I’ve said before, all of the opinions you have ever expressed, plus $5 in cash, will buy you a $5 cup of coffee. Maybe if your opinions were based on something tangible, they would be worth considering. Otherwise, your opinions have no value.
I pay attention to whom I wish. I’m not sure why you choose to think that “folks whining about deniers” would particularly attract my attention, but I really don’t care what your opinion of me happens to be. Why should I?
Have you stopped believing in a GHE which you can’t even describe in any consistent and unambiguous way, or not? Man up, and at least express an opinion – you seem to have plenty to spare.
looks like one place went one better than CO2, methanesat observing the newest wild child on the block
https://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2025/07/02/nz-funded-climate-satellite-likely-not-recoverable/
I live in New Zealand. That’s typical. Sink Navy Research vessels and now this. The way our government goes on one would think NZ was the biggest polluter in the world. Unfortunately most people her believe the Climate Alarmist Scam.
Regarding the above article, it overlooks one very important service that the OCO-2 (and perhaps OCO-3 as well) satellite performed: it verified that the NOAA Mauna Loa and Maunakea* ground stations for monitoring ppm-level trends in lower troposphere atmospheric CO2 concentration levels (the so-called Keeling curve) properly reflected global scale atmospheric concentrations.
See the comparison of the two different measurements from January 2015 to March 2023 at
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5119 .
*Note that NOAA temporarily made CO2 measurements on Maunakea from December 2022 to July 2023, which includes the end-date of the above-linked graph. This was done following the Mauna Loa volcano eruption in late 2022, which disabled the Mauna Loa Observatory. NOAA established a temporary CO2 measurement site at the Maunakea Observatories, about 21 miles north of Mauna Loa. However, NOAA successfully resumed its CO2 observations at the Mauna Loa Observatory in July 2023. The above referenced URL correctly identifies the transition from “Mauna Loa” to “Maunakea Observatories” on its moving timeline.
Thanks, TYS. You said:
“one very important service that the OCO-2 (and perhaps OCO-3 as well) satellite performed: it verified that the NOAA Mauna Loa and Maunakea* ground stations for monitoring ppm-level trends in lower troposphere atmospheric CO2 concentration levels (the so-called Keeling curve) properly reflected global scale atmospheric concentrations.”
Mmm … not really. The satellites are themselves calibrated by comparison with ground-based data. Here’s what I find.
Best regards,
w.
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The OCO-2 and OCO-3 satellites were specifically designed to provide precise, global measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), extending and complementing ground-based records such as the Keeling Curve established at NOAA’s Mauna Loa and Maunakea observatories.
However, the primary role of OCO-2 and OCO-3 in relation to these ground stations has been through mutual validation and cross-comparison, rather than a one-way verification.
Here’s how the relationship actually works:
In conclusion: OCO-2 and OCO-3 did not “verify” that the Mauna Loa or Maunakea ground stations are correct in isolation. Rather, through a robust international validation framework, including consistent cross-checks with ground networks like the Keeling Curve, all parties have confirmed the high level of agreement between satellite and surface CO2 records. This process strengthens confidence in both the ground-based Keeling Curve and global satellite measurements as accurate indicators of atmospheric CO2 trends.ocov2.jpl.nasa+2
Unfortunately, the first non-NASA reference starts off with the following fairytale –
Even NOAA says –
So, a “powerful event” is just more temperature readings, which affect nothing at all.
All pseudoscience- the product of the glib confidence tricksters calling themselves “climate scientists”. At least one Government is getting wise, and cutting off funding for the quack purveyors of the mythical GHE.
Wow . . . that appears to be almost identical to what the perplexity AI bot (or a similar AI) would issue forth. Good work on running down those 20 references.
I do admit to not being so careful as to distinguish “verification” from “validation”. Mea culpa . . . mea maxima culpa.
Calibration of the satellite sensors? That’s altogether something else, since Mauna Loa/Maunakea (essentially) represent only a single geographic data “point” but the OCO-2 and OCO-3 satellites really need calibration over their full range of total Earth coverage due to parameters such as the varying pole-to-pole thickness of the troposphere.
Best regards back at ya.
TYS, you say:
I’m sorry, but to falsify the facts I found, whining about my using AI to find them is just an ad hominem (or perhaps an ad mechanicum) argument. Anyone who doesn’t use AI to supplement and streamline their research is a fool.
It doesn’t matter in the slightest where or how I got those facts. They say that contrary to your claim, the ground data is used to calibrate the satellites, not the other way around. The only thing that matters is, are those facts true or not?
I say they are, and I have provided the references to back them up.
Your move.
w.
Really? . . . when I stated “appears to be”?
So you say. Any objective proof of that, taking into account well-documented AI “hallucinations”?
“They say that contrary to your claim, the ground data is used to calibrate the satellites.”
Willis, I’m sorry to see that you seem so confused: if you carefully read my previous posts you’ll see that I never claimed that ground data was NOT used to calibrate the OCO-2 and OCO-3 satellite ibstruments.
What I posted was that the Mauna Loa/Maunakea data trending of absolute values of atmospheric CO2 concentrations in ppm was confirmed (I used the word “verified” . . . with which you/perplexity AI took somewhat extreme umbrage) by the OCO-2 satellite. It was you that introduced the subject of “calibration” of OCO satellite measurements, to which I replied that Mauna Loa/Maunakea data sets represented essentially a single geographic data point and therefore could not possibly calibrate the satellite for its full global coverage extent.
To show this is true, if I assume a 100 mile diameter circle centered on the midpoint between and encompassing Mauna Loa and Maunakea, that is an area of about 7855 sq. miles. Since the surface area of the Earth is some 1.97e8 sq. miles, the Mauna Loa/Maunakea sampling locations represent only about 0.004% of the total area monitored by the OCO satellites.
I stand by my statements, but welcome you or perplexity to correct me if I’m wrong about the OCO satellite calibration methodology. Your own found “fact” states that “OCO-2 and OCO-3 data are calibrated and validated against this {“The Keeling Curve, produced at Mauna Loa”}, and other networks, thus confirming the trustworthiness of both measurement systems.” (my bold emphasis added)
I already admitted that I failed to correctly distinguish between “verification” and “validation” in a previous post . . . IMHO, a distinction without a difference in the larger context.
Finally—and I find this as insightful as it is interesting—you assert “I’m sorry, but to falsify the facts I found . . . It doesn’t matter in the slightest where or how I got those facts.” where one of your found “facts” states verbatim:
“• Global Coverage and Context: OCO-2 and OCO-3’s biggest unique contribution is delivering very dense, global-scale CO2 measurements, contextualizing trends seen at individual ground stations, and helping identify regional sources, sinks, and spatial distribution patterns that ground sites alone cannot provide. ocov2.jpl.nasa+1 “
while this “fact” of yours happens to be in direct conflict with these statements in the above WUWT article you authored:
“The supposed ‘applications’ for OCO-2 data beyond academic joyrides? They’re a gospel of indirectness. ‘National carbon accounting.’ ‘Large-scale scientific assessments.’ ‘Paris Agreement verification.’ ‘Model input.’ If you boil this all down, what you get is more paperwork, higher-resolution graphs, and the chance for government ministries to add another decimal point to emission numbers with satellite snapshots. The impact on your life, the price of your groceries, or the peril to your electrical grid? Round off to zero.”
“Best I can tell, not a single primary source—not NASA, not peer-reviewed journals, not the Paris Agreement’s own secretariat—documents any organization, utility, or corporation making a real-world, real-money decision using OCO data. Every “benefit” is hypothetical, every “application” is a footnote for a climate negotiation PowerPoint, and every stakeholder story ends a step before anything actually happens.”
Be careful in cutting and pasting.
And I don’t consider this as a game of chess, checkers or poker.
Best regards,
Just like measuring “air temperatures”, “surface temperatures”, “ocean temperatures”, or any other sort of temperature of that nature.
Completely pointless – even national meteorological bodies give up, and issue “feels like” pseudo temperatures.
There are niche uses for current air temperatures, but even aircraft pilots are not interested in yesterday’s air temperature. They leave that to “climate scientists”, who pretend to be able to predict the future by minutely examining the past.
All good fun, I suppose.
Obviously, you have never bothered to give any value to—let alone use—weather forecasts for next day temperatures, approaching weather fronts, approaching hurricanes or typhoons, or forecasts of snow or rain. /sarc
Also, just don’t believe in preparedness, eh?
BTW, it is common practice for sailors at sea to use yesterday’s observations of a rapidly falling barometric pressure to predict today’s likelihood of stormy weather. That’s not fun . . . it’s reality!