SCIENTISTS TO MEASURE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS OVER NORTH AMERICA

May 28, 2003 — Government and university scientists will be hanging out at the track this summer—only there aren’t any horses and the track is located 30,000 feet above sea level. (Click NOAA image for larger view of COBRA (CO2 Budget and Regional Airborne Study) 2003 “racetrack.”)

The “racetrack” is a pattern that a highly instrumented University of North Dakota Cessna Citation aircraft will fly over the central portion of North America to measure greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers plan to measure the concentrations of a variety of gases, such as carbon dioxide and sulfur hexafluoride, over a major portion of North America, from late May through June 2003. The scientists will combine the aircraft data with high-resolution winds to determine the emission rates for major greenhouse gases over the continent during the month of the experiment.

The flights will also include measurements of ozone-depleting gases and other pollutants from the New York City-Washington, D.C. metropolitan corridor, Denver, Boston, and Dallas. There will be excursions over the Pacific Ocean from Eureka, Calif., and over the Atlantic from Pease, N.H., to Sable Island, to examine coastal influence of marine air and the mixing processes between maritime and continental air. (Click NOAA image for larger view of COBRA first test flight through Denver's pollution and haze layer taken May 23, 2003. Click here for high resolution version, which is a large file. Please credit “NOAA.)

James Elkins, a researcher at the NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., and a principal investigator on the project, says “This mission will enable us to map the emissions of both ozone depleting and greenhouse gases across the U.S. and Canada in a way we’ve never been able to do before.”

Called COBRA (CO2 Budget and Regional Airborne Study), the experiment will also rely upon the extensive ground-based data from the NOAA Cooperative Station Networks for carbon cycle and halocarbon trace gases, the Fluxnet Canada research network and the AmeriFlux network of ground stations. (Click NOAA image for larger view of North Dakota Cessna Citation aircraft taking off from Jefferson County Airport in Broomfield, Colo., on first test flight through Denver's pollution taken May 23, 2003. Click here for high resolution version, which is a large file. Please credit “NOAA.)

“The flight plan is very ambitious,” said Elkins. “As the aircraft flies over the ground stations, vertical profiles will be taken that will provide important data on the boundary conditions for the flow of air through the area of the racetrack and for atmospheric mixing.” Previous studies have identified a large land area that absorbs CO2 in North America. COBRA will provide a critical test for these ideas.

One of the most important problems in forecasting future climate change is to improve predictions of future concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. “Currently we lack the capability to accurately measure the sources and sinks of greenhouse gases from large land areas such as North America,” says project scientist Steven Wofsy of Harvard. “This type of measurement is essential for accurate predictions of the future. The COBRA program is designed to make detailed observations in the atmosphere and allow us to determine large-scale sources and sinks.” The racetrack was chosen to encompass a large “sink” of CO2 that occurs over North America during the peak growing season for vegetation. (Click NOAA image for larger view of vacuum-UV resonance fluorescence instrument measures the pollutant carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, which is produced during fossil fuel combustion from power plants, autos and forest fires. Click here for high resolution version, which is a large file. Please credit “NOAA.”)

The project runs until June 23, 2003, and is based at Jefferson County Airport in Broomfield, Colo., and at Pease, N.H. Participants include researchers from the NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory, Harvard University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of North Dakota, the University of Colorado Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Scientists at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, will collaborate by providing detailed winds and meteorology from their Brazilian Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (BRAMS).

Principal funding is being provided by NASA’s Terrestrial Ecology Program, headed by Diane E. Wickland, with additional funds from the NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory and the Office of Global Programs, NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research and Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling Analysis Programs, the National Science Foundation’s Atmospheric Chemistry Program, and the Department of Energy’s Terrestrial Carbon Program.

NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation’s coastal and marine resources. NOAA is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Relevant Web Sites
NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory

NOAA Office of Global Programs

Media Contact:
Barbara McGehan, NOAA Research, (303) 497-6288
(Photos courtesy of James Elkins, researcher at the NOAA Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.)