December 17, 2024
4 minimum read
US dispatches passenger plane to monitor greenhouse gas emissions across the country
United Airlines is partnering with NOAA as part of a broader federal strategy to better monitor the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions
Information collected by airliners can help scientists verify emissions measurements collected at the same location by other methods, such as satellites or ground-based instruments.
Michal Krakowiak/Getty Images
Climate wire | A new partnership between NOAA and United Airlines will help federal scientists better understand the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.
The project, scheduled to begin next year, will equip Boeing 737 planes with scientific instruments designed to monitor carbon dioxide, methane and other climate-warming gases. Scientists say the planes will zigzag across the country, stopping in up to five cities a day, collecting valuable data on emissions in both rural and urban areas.
This information helps scientists verify emissions measurements collected at the same location by other methods, such as satellites or ground-based instruments. It also helps cities and land managers identify where they may be underestimating their emissions.
About supporting science journalism
If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting our award-winning journalism. Currently subscribing. By subscribing, you help ensure future generations of influential stories about the discoveries and ideas that shape the world today.
“This is a real opportunity to go where all the activity is happening in terms of understanding emissions,” said Robert E., vice president of science at NOAA’s Earth Monitoring Laboratory and director of the institute’s aircraft program. said lead scientist Colm Sweeney. “We’re not trying to regulate emissions. We’re just trying to understand what the emissions profile is.”
This project is part of a broader federal strategy to coordinate and improve greenhouse gas monitoring efforts across federal agencies. Efforts have intensified in the final weeks of the Biden administration amid concerns that the incoming Trump administration will deprioritize or dismantle the so-called National Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Strategy.
The partnership between NOAA and United Airlines, announced at the White House Super Pollutants Summit in July, is known as a joint research and development agreement. That means NOAA provides the staff and equipment, but not the funding.
NOAA already uses research aircraft to conduct a variety of data collection missions, but federal scientists say partnering with commercial airlines opens new doors for greenhouse gas monitoring efforts. There is. Research flights are expensive and aircraft are limited, but by installing sensors on commercial aircraft, researchers can easily collect continuous measurements from unrelated flights.
“This collaboration represents a major step forward in U.S. efforts to monitor and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions,” Sarah Kapnick, NOAA’s chief scientist, said in a statement. “Leveraging the capabilities of commercial aircraft could rapidly advance our understanding of greenhouse gas emissions and inform policy.”
“The ship has already set sail.”
The Biden administration has announced a new national greenhouse gas measurement, monitoring, and information system roadmap for 2023.
The national strategy established a data portal, known as the National Greenhouse Gas Center, designed to integrate emissions observations from a wide range of sources. It also includes various recommendations to expand, integrate, and coordinate greenhouse gas monitoring efforts across federal agencies and private sector partners.
Experts say coordination is key to improving the country’s greenhouse gas data. Most federal science agencies, including NASA, NOAA, and EPA, have their own efforts to monitor and estimate emissions in different ways across different sectors of the economy. The new NOAA project is just one example.
However, until recently, there has been no reasonable effort to integrate these efforts and combine data.
“We have so much information, so much diversity, so many sources. It’s kind of an acronym soup,” said NASA climate scientist Leslie Ott. “And even for scientists, that can be difficult to overcome.”
Now, that is changing as federal scientists coordinate monitoring programs, integrate data, and work with private companies and NGOs to improve data collection efforts. They come even as President-elect Donald Trump, who has repeatedly denied the science of anthropogenic climate change, prepares to take office for a second term and casts doubt on the future of the nation’s greenhouse gas monitoring efforts. We are doubling down on these efforts.
President Trump has promised to expand oil and gas development in the United States and withdraw from the Paris Agreement for the second time. President Trump’s second-term policy plan, Project 2025, led by the Heritage Foundation, also calls for significant cuts and restructuring of federal science agencies, including NOAA and the EPA.
President Trump has previously distanced himself from policy blueprints, but he recently named some of the planners for positions in his new administration.
But federal scientists say they remain fully committed to this mission regardless of a change in administration, and that the strength of the economy and global momentum for emissions reduction efforts will combine to sustain that effort over the next four years. I am cautiously optimistic that we will continue to make progress.
“I think what we’re all really focused on is not to speculate, not to talk too far, because we just don’t know,” Ott said. “I think what we’re really focused on is fulfilling the mission that we have.”
Riley Duren, CEO of Carbon Mapper, a greenhouse gas monitoring nonprofit, added that federal regulation is just one aspect of efforts to reduce global warming emissions.
“In my opinion, there has already been some shift around the world towards the use of data-driven regulation and market mechanisms, and there is momentum behind that change,” he said. “And I think a lot of policymakers, if they think about that critically, they can see the motivation to join in supporting those things, because that’s the direction industry and civil society are heading.”
Reprinted from E&E News Published with permission of POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2024. E&E News provides news that matters to energy and environment professionals.
