CaltechAUTHORS
Published December 2025 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

A U.S. Scientific Community Vision for Sustained Earth Observations of Greenhouse Gases to Support Local to Global Action

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon Jet Propulsion Lab
  • 2. ROR icon San Jose State University
  • 3. ROR icon Goddard Space Flight Center
  • 4. ROR icon University of Maryland, College Park
  • 5. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 6. ROR icon Weizmann Institute of Science
  • 7. ROR icon Woods Hole Research Center
  • 8. ROR icon National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
  • 9. Qube Technology, Calgary, AB, Canada
  • 10. Crisp Spectra LLC, Sedona, AZ, USA
  • 11. ROR icon Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center
  • 12. ROR icon Morgan State University
  • 13. ROR icon George Mason University
  • 14. ROR icon University of California, Riverside
  • 15. ROR icon Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • 16. ROR icon Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
  • 17. ROR icon Boston University
  • 18. ROR icon International Institute of Tropical Forestry
  • 19. ROR icon Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • 20. ROR icon University of Colorado Boulder
  • 21. ROR icon Western University
  • 22. ROR icon Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
  • 23. ROR icon University of Illinois at Chicago
  • 24. Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA, USA
  • 25. ROR icon Universities Space Research Association
  • 26. ROR icon University of California, Los Angeles
  • 27. ROR icon Colorado State University
  • 28. ROR icon University of California, Santa Barbara
  • 29. Spark Climate Solutions, Silver Springs, MD, USA
  • 30. ROR icon United States Geological Survey
  • 31. ROR icon Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
  • 32. ROR icon University of Toronto

Abstract

Managing carbon stocks in the land, ocean, and atmosphere under changing climate requires a globally‐integrated view of carbon cycle processes at local and regional scales. The growing Earth Observation (EO) record is the backbone of this multi‐scale system, providing local information with discrete coverage from surface measurements and regional information at global scale from satellites. Carbon flux information, anchored by inverse estimates from spaceborne Greenhouse Gas (GHG) concentrations, provides an important top‐down view of carbon emissions and sinks, but currently lacks global continuity at assessment and management scales (<100 km). Partial‐column data can help separate signals in the boundary layer from the overlying atmosphere, providing an opportunity to enhance surface sensitivity and bring flux resolution down from that of column‐integrated data (100–500 km). Based on a workshop held in September 2024, the carbon cycle community envisions a carbon observation system leveraging GHG partial columns in the lower and upper troposphere to weave together information across scales from surface and satellite EO data, and integration of top‐down/bottom‐up analyses to link process understanding to global assessment.

Copyright and License

© 2025. Smithsonian Institution. Crisp Spectra LLC. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Spark Climate Solutions. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology. Government sponsorship acknowledged and The Author(s). This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Acknowledgement

The workshop was funded as an unsolicited proposal (Proposal #226264: In support of “Carbon Stocks Workshop: September 23–25, 2024”) by the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center, Earth Science Division, NASA. We acknowledge Anna Karion for participating in the workshop and the many constructive conversations. DC acknowledges support from the NASA Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) program. RKB was supported in part by the Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech. AF acknowledges funding from the NASA ECOSTRESS Science Team. NL is grateful for funding from NSF (OCE-1752724). GM acknowledges funding from NASA CMS (NNH20ZDA001N). HN and BAG acknowledge support from appointments to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, administered by Oak Ridge Associated Universities under contract with NASA. The findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the author(s) and should not be construed to represent official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy. The research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. © 2025. All rights reserved.

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Additional details

Funding

National Science Foundation
OCE‐1752724
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NNH20ZDA001N
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
80NM0018D0004

Dates

Submitted
2025-06-12
Accepted
2025-10-10
Available
2025-12-13
Version of record online

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS)
Publication Status
Published