Early Data from Ibuki

by Amir Alexander

The Japanese Space Agency JAXA has released early data collected by the greenhouse gas monitoring satellite, Ibuki. Also known as GOSAT, Ibuki was launched on January 23 to measure carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere around the globe. The mission was designed to complement NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), which was launched on February 23 but failed to reach orbit. With OCO's loss, Ibuki will take on a much greater role in monitoring the main greenhouse gas generated by humans in the coming years.

The Ibuki data presented by JAXA is only preliminary, since the instruments on board the spacecraft are still being calibrated. In fact, the released data was collected on April 20 -- 28 as part of the calibration process. Even so, Ibuki's preliminary mapping of carbon dioxide distributions can provide a broad outline of the accurate data that canbe expected from the spacecraft down the road.