Harnessing AI And Satellite Data For Accurate Climate Change Assessment

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) Swiss and international experts are banking on a growing constellation of satellites and artificial intelligence models to give more accurate insights into greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. They say faster, more detailed data would strengthen countries' emission reduction efforts.

Born in London, Simon is a multimedia journalist who has worked for since 2006. He speaks French, German and Spanish and focuses on science, technology and innovation issues.

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Under the Paris climate agreement, states must regularly report estimates of how much GHG they emit or remove. These are calculated from data on activities such as transport, industry, heating and energy production, and based on internationally agreed guidelines from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But this long, resource-intensive reporting process is full of uncertainties.

Gerrit Kuhlmann, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials and Technology (Empa),External link is convinced that satellite-based Earth observations and developments in AI can help nations better assess and verify the scale of their emissions.

“AI can process a lot of information about what the specific GHG emissions are, where they come from and their impact on climate change. AI can help us to interpret this data and give us additional context,” the Zurich-based researcher tells SWI swissinfo.

Kuhlmann and his colleagues at Empa have been involved in studies for Europe's Copernicus programme to equip Earth observation satellites with GHG measurement technology. Their goal is to give governments and decision-makers detailed maps of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) released worldwide. These precise views of country-level and regional emissions-provided almost in real-time-will enable nations to verify, validate or tweak policies, and even zoom in to pinpoint problematic emissions and hotspots, like gas or oil facilities or power plants.

In recent years there has been exponential growth in the number of Earth-observing satellites and their capabilities: from around 200 in 2013 to almost 1,200 in 2023External link . They now represent almost 20% of the total orbiting satellite population. Firms like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Planet Labs, and Maxar Technologies are competing to push the boundaries with fleets of small satellites that offer high-quality imagery to monitor the planet's health.

By 2030, the Earth observation field is expected to contribute over $700 billion (CHF640 billion) to the global economy and reduce annual greenhouse gases by 2 billion metric tonnes (Gigatonnes), according to a World Economic Forum (WEF) reportExternal link published last year.

This generates vast amounts of complex satellite dataExternal link that must be organised and analysed. In a recent white paperExternal link , authors at the MIT/WEF said advances in machine learning, AI and forecasting are enabling this processing, turning raw data into actionable insights at unprecedented speeds.

Various climate change monitoring platforms using Earth observations are under development around the world. They include NASA's Carbon Monitoring System (CMS)External link and Europe's Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS), managed by the European Commission and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather forecasts (EMCWF).

Global GHG monitoring efforts are coordinated by the Global Greenhouse Gas Watch (G3W) programmeExternal link established last year by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Elsewhere, emissions of methane are overseen by UNEP's International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO).External link

American and Japanese instruments and satellites have already been successfully monitoring methane emissions for several years, generating images of leaks from oil and gas facilities, coal mines and landfills.

“There's a lot of research and innovation going on in Europe, but also globally on how to build a system like that. Our lab is one of the labs quite involved in this, but hundreds of people are probably working internationally on how we can do that,” explains Kuhlmann.

Satellites have been able to measure changes in concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere for over a decade. But they have not provided global coverage and focused mainly on variations in the natural carbon cycle.

Over the past ten years, for example, NASA has also been tracking CO2 with ever-greater accuracy via its OCO-2 and OCO-3 instruments on the International Space Station.

However, it has not been possible yet to estimate emissions from anthropogenic sources alone. And currently there is no global CO2 monitoring platform with imaging capabilities.

This looks set to change with Europe's Copernicus CO2 Monitoring Mission (CO2M)External link and GHG monitoring system.

The first of two CO2M satellites, packed with the latest instruments and sensors, will be launched in 2026. The multi-satellite constellation will offer high-resolution imaging, global coverage and frequent re-visits.

A combined CO2 and NO2 imaging spectrometer on board will measure CO2, methane and NO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. The Copernicus system will be able to estimate and measure emissions of C02 and methane from anthropogenic sources with unprecedented accuracy and detail – and close to real time.

Earth observations gathered by CO2M satellites will be studied by scientists working at CAMS alongside ground-based measurements and modelling to distinguish anthropogenic (human-made) emissions of CO2 and methane from natural sources, such as forests, plants and animals.

Empa scientists provided the European Space Agency (ESA) with various recommendations for equipping the CO2M satellites, including the idea of the combined measuring device that detects CO2 and NO2, both of which are produced by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

“If we see the high NO2 and high CO2 values, we know as these high CO2 values are coming from anthropogenic emissions – or basically from the burning of fossil fuels,” Kuhlmann explains.

NO2 is not produced during the natural“breathing” of the biosphere. An instrument on the satellite should therefore be able to“filter out” anthropogenic CO2 signals.

Satellites will also generate important data on how green and dense vegetation is on Earth, how many leaves there are on the trees, for example.“That tells us how much CO2 they are actually taking out of the atmosphere,” Kuhlmann says.

Swiss scientists have been taking part in the development of the CO2M under the European Union's research and development framework programmes Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe. Switzerland, though not part of the EU, is a member of the ESA.

Full participation in the Copernicus Earth observation programme still seems some way off, however. Switzerland has not been officially part of the European satellite initiative since its launch. In 2023 parliament voted in favour of joining, but last May the government ruled against it due to the strained state of federal finances.

>> A video showing CO2 emissions globally over the course of 2021, developed as part of the EU-funded CoCO2 research projectExternal link coordinated by ECMWF.

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