Unlocking the secrets of the global carbon cycle
Improving our understanding of the global carbon cycle will provide insight into the mechanisms driving climate change. Surface fluxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) are an important component of the global cycle. Measurement of these fluxes over large areas is experimentally challenging, hence scientists often rely on data collected from sensors aboard Earth-orbiting satellites. The COCO project was designed to take advantage of data provided by ENVISAT, the European Space Agency environmental satellite, and other recent missions. The project spanned nearly four years and received funding of approximately one million Euros from the Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development Programme. The COCO consortium was led by the Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. One of the main objectives of the project was to improve the accuracy of column measurements of CO2. The COCO scientific team endeavoured to reduce the measurement uncertainty to below one percent. This involved a detailed investigation of complex variables concerning sensor operation, satellite orientation, etc. in an effort to eliminate possible sources of error. The new column measurements will be validated against field data collected from the existing surface-based network. The achievements of the Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and its partners have been summarised and published in a relevant paper.
