major challenge in climate science is to understand the fate of the approximately 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide emitted each year as a result of human activities (such as motor vehicles, factories, and deforestation). Climate scientists need to advance their ability to observe and model concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to: Make more accurate predictions of future atmospheric composition, and associated effects on the Earth’s climate Estimate anthropogenic (human-induced) emissions of greenhouse gases at regional or national scales to quantify the effectiveness of measures to reduce emissions. Surface gas measurements can be made very precisely and accurately. But it’s difficult to calculate surface fluxes from these measurements (e.g. to infer carbon emissions) because of atmospheric mixing. |