IUP Carbon & Greenhouse Gas Group

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.

Here some figures from our contribution to the Copernicus European State of the Climate 2022 (ESOTC 2022) Climate Indicators section published on 20-April-2023:

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.

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.

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:

The figure is also available as GeoTIFF file.

Last modification: 5-May-2023

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