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IUP Carbon & Greenhouse Gas Group

This is the website of the "IUP Carbon and Greenhouse Gas Group" of the Institute of Environmental Physics (IUP) / Institute of Remote Sensing (IFE) of the University of Bremen, Germany.

We are primarily interested in the atmospheric distribution and the (surface) sources and sinks of the atmospheric gases carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO). Our focus is on satellite and aircraft data and their interpretation.

In particular, we are working on retrieval algorithms used to produce scientific and operational data products from satellites (SCIAMACHY, GOSAT, OCO-2, S5P, ...) and aircraft data (MAMAP).

We are also working on future satellite missions such as Sentinel-5 and the planned European anthropogenic CO2 monitoring (CO2M) mission, a constellation of satellites (planned launch: 2025) based on our CarbonSat concept.

The purpose of this web site is to collect and make available all information related to these activities.

Note that we also maintain several other websites:

  1. Copernicus Climate Data Store (CDS): We are generating satellite-derived CO2 and CH4 atmospheric data products for the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). Please visit the C3S CDS website for access to these data products and related information.
  2. GHG-CCI project website: Provides information and access to satellite-derived atmospheric CO2 and CH4 data products as generated in the framwork of ESA's Climate Change Initiative (CCI).
  3. SCIAMACHY BESD website (of M. Reuter): Contains information related to our BESD algorithm SCIAMACHY XCO2 retrievals.
  4. EMMA XCO2 website (of M. Reuter): Ensemble Median Algoritm (EMMA) XCO2 website.
  5. EMMA XCH4 website (of M. Reuter): Ensemble Median Algoritm (EMMA) XCH4 website.
  6. FOCAL-OCO2 website (of M. Reuter): OCO-2 XCO2 retrievals using the FOCAL algorithm.
  7. GOSAT FOCAL XCO2 website (of S. Noel): Contains primarily information related to our GOSAT FOCAL XCO2 retrievals including access to the corresponding data products which we generate in the framework of the European CAMS project since mid 2022.
  8. GOSAT BESD XCO2 website (of S. Noel and M. Reuter): Contains primarily information related to our GOSAT BESD XCO2 retrievals including access to the corresponding data products which we generated in the framework of the European CAMS project until mid 2022.
  9. Sentinel-5-Precursor (S5P) WFM-DOAS (WFMD) website (of O. Schneising): Contains information on our S5P WFMD XCH4 and XCO data products.
  10. SCIAMACHY WFM-DOAS (WFMD) website (of O. Schneising): Contains information on our SCIAMACHY WFM-DOAS XCO2 and XCH4 data products and related informations.
  11. C3S website (of M. Buchwitz): Only project internal.
  12. CarbonSat website (of M. Buchwitz): Contains information on our CarbonSat mission as prosed to ESA for Earth Explorer 8.
  13. Clim4Edu Projekt: Handbuch mit Hintergrundinformationen, Kurzvideos zu verschiedenen Aspekten des Klimawandels und browserbasierte interaktive Materialien für Schulen zum Thema Klimawandel mit Fokus auf Satellitenbeobachtungen.

Top: Timeseries of satellite-derived XCO2 (left) and XCH4 (right) as retrieved from SCIAMACHY (until 2012), GOSAT (since 2009), OCO-2 (since 2014) and GOSAT-2 (since 2019) radiance spectra. The time resolution is monthly and the spatial coverage is 60S-60N over land. Bottom: Corresponding annual mean growth rates. Details including data access information see corresponding Copernicus press release (10-Jan-2023).

Satellite-derived XCO2 and XCH4 and corresponding growth rates.

Timeseries and maps of satellite-derived XCO2 retrieved from SCIAMACHY (until 2012), GOSAT (since 2009), OCO-2 (since 2014) and GOSAT-2 (since 2019) radiance spectra. As can be seen, atmospheric CO2 concentrations are increasing despite world-wide efforts to reduce fossil fuel related CO2 emissions.

Satellite-derived XCO2

Timeseries and maps of satellite-derived XCH4 retrieved from SCIAMACHY (until 2012), GOSAT (since 2009) and GOSAT-2 (since 2019) radiance spectra. As can be seen, atmospheric CH4 concentrations are increasing since 2007.

Satellite-derived XCH4

A global map of satellite-derived XCH4 retrieved from TROPOMI onboard the Sentinel-5-Presursor (S5P) satellite. The underlying data can be otained from the University of Bremen TROPOMI/S5P WFMD website as Level 2 (non-gridded) product. The data have been generated using a retrieval algorithm developed in the framework of the ESA GHG-CCI project:

Satellite-derived XCH4

The figure is also available as GeoTIFF file.

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Last modification: 30-Jan-2023

Author: Michael.Buchwitz@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de