A decade of carbon dioxide data from space gets an upgrade

AI Summary

NASA's OCO-2 and OCO-3 instruments collect more than a million daily observations of sunlight reflected from Earth's surface to estimate atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. An upgraded algorithm processes the decade-long satellite record, supporting improved monitoring of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Every day, two NASA space instruments known as the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 and -3 (OCO-2 and OCO-3) capture more than a million observations of sunlight reflecting off Earth's surface. Using the physics of how light travels through the air, an algorithm converts these raw data into atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations.