EarthDesk Sunday: NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2

“Your planet is changing. We’re on it.” NASA adopted the motto during the Obama years, and is still on it. View the video about its Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2.  Afterward, more about the five papers NASA published in the journal Science presenting 2 1/2 years of Earth observation — despite the war on science being waged by the current administration.

From the NASA news release of October 12:

High-resolution satellite data from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 are revealing the subtle ways that carbon links everything on Earth – the ocean, land, atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems and human activities. Scientists using the first 2 1/2 years of OCO-2 data have published a special collection of five papers today in the journal Science that demonstrates the breadth of this research. In addition to showing how drought and heat in tropical forests affected global carbon dioxide levels during the 2015-16 El Niño, other results from these papers focus on ocean carbon release and absorption, urban emissions and a new way to study photosynthesis.

To view the OCO-2 data visit NASA at this link. To read the NASA papers visit Science at this link.