National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The NASA Carbon Monitoring System project is forward-looking and designed to make significant contributions in characterizing, quantifying, understanding, and predicting the evolution of global carbon sources and sinks through improved monitoring of carbon stocks and fluxes. The approaches developed have emphasized the use of NASA satellite remote sensing resources, computational capabilities, airborne science capabilities, scientific knowledge, and end-to-end system expertise in combination with effective use of commercial off-the-shelf measurement capabilities in order to prototype key data products for monitoring, reporting, and verification. Significant effort is being devoted to rigorous evaluation of the carbon monitoring products being produced, as well as to the characterization and quantification of errors and uncertainties in those products.

Greenhouse gas emission inventories, forest carbon sequestration programs (e.g., Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD and REDD+), cap-and-trade systems, self-reporting programs, and their associated monitoring, reporting and verification frameworks depend upon data that are accurate, systematic, practical, and transparent. A sustained, observationally-driven carbon monitoring system using remote sensing data has the potential to significantly improve the relevant carbon cycle information base for the U.S. and world. Work is needed to prototype and mature relevant measurement and analytical approaches for use in support of monitoring, reporting, and verification frameworks. NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System project is prototyping and conducting pilot studies to evaluate technological approaches and methodologies to meet this need.

NASA: Keeping Up With Carbon
Oct 15, 2009

NASA | A Year in the Life of Earth's CO2
Nov 17, 2014

NASA | Carbon All Around Us
Nov 20, 2015

NASA Carbon and Climate Media Teleconference
Nov 12, 2015

• Use the full range of NASA satellite observations, modeling/analysis capabilities, and commercial off-the-shelf technologies to establish the accuracy, quantitative uncertainties, and utility of products for supporting national and international policy, regulatory, and management activities.
• Prototype the development of carbon Monitoring Reporting and Verification [MRV] systems which can provide transparent data products achieving levels of precision and accuracy required by current carbon trading protocols.
• Harness unique capabilities of NASA centers and the NASA-funded investigator community, making use of competitive peer review wherever possible.
• Rapidly initiate generation and distribution of products, both for evaluation and to inform near-term policy development and planning.
• Engage with, and contribute to, related U.S. and international stakeholders and agencies.

The goal for NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System project is to prototype the development of carbon monitoring capabilities needed to support U.S. needs for monitoring, reporting, and verification. To meet this goal, NASA leverages the best available remote sensing observations, supporting in situ observations, process understanding, and models to consistently and transparently advance carbon monitoring, reporting and verification, including the identification and attribution (to sources/causes) of important carbon stocks and fluxes. NASA’s Carbon Monitoring System project aims to provide an improved understanding of uncertainty across multiple scales, with a particular focus on developing a capability for providing well-characterized, quantitative information about carbon in areas of rapid change and policy relevance. Through user engagement activities, the NASA CMS project will take specific actions to be responsive to the needs of stakeholders working to improve monitoring, reporting and verification frameworks.

There are multiple carbon monitoring, reporting, and verification frameworks in existence, reflecting a diversity of spatial scales, governing bodies, and relevant policies. Three major frameworks include:

1. improving forest carbon inventory data to support the United Nation’s (UN) REDD and REDD+ program (in developing nations, primarily in the pan-tropics) and other carbon management projects (in the United States and elsewhere) for land owners and countries;
2. supporting National and sub-national Greenhouse Gas (GHG) inventories and regular reporting (e.g., all United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) parties and a growing number of states and provinces); and,
3. complementing various reporting systems and registries including those associated with carbon emission trading systems (aka cap and trade or carbon markets).

TBD

Get from database list of stakeholders and how they use the data.

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---