Boulder team creates carbon dioxide tracker
Jim Erickson, Rocky Mountain News
Published March 22, 2007 at midnight
Scientists have a new tool to track the movement of carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas blamed for global warming.
CarbonTracker, created by Boulder researchers, combines real-world measurements of carbon dioxide with computer models to allow scientists to predict where gas plumes will travel.
Each year, humans pump nearly 8 billion tons of carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere, largely from the burning of fossil fuels.
About half of it remains in the air and likely contributes to global warming, while the other half is soaked up by the oceans and land.
CarbonTracker is designed to identify carbon dioxide sources, as well as the places that soak it up. One day, it may allow cities, states and nations to assess their efforts to reduce emissions, said Pieter Tans, a carbon researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
It might, for example, enable nations that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to evaluate their progress in meeting emissions-reduction targets.
"If society wants to mitigate climate change, CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions have to be the primary target," Tans said during a Wednesday teleconference with reporters. "And we will need a tool to objectively quantify emissions."
CarbonTracker, a product of NOAA's Earth System Research Lab in Boulder, is not quite up to that task yet.
The main reason? A dearth of carbon dioxide monitoring sites around the globe. About 60 exist worldwide, with about 20 of them in the U.S.
Tans is encouraging state governments and universities to join the network. Ideally, the number of measuring sites will grow into the hundreds, perhaps the thousands, he said.
A bigger network would deliver a more detailed picture of carbon dioxide's behavior - like using a microscope with a more powerful lens. Researchers then might be able to compare emissions produced by two large cities, such as Denver and Phoenix.
The current version of CarbonTracker can discern emissions differences between large regions, such as the West and the Southeast.
"NOAA is not in a position to go and verify (Kyoto) treaty compliance by the Netherlands, for example," said Scott Denning, a Colorado State University atmospheric scientist.
CarbonTracker is being refined so it can zero in on carbon-14, a form of the element that conclusively identifies carbon dioxide produced by fossil fuel emissions, Tans said.
ericksonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5129
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