Federal agencies launch U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center

Four federal agencies – the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – have partnered on the creation of the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center, which was announced earlier this week during the 28th annual United Nations Climate Conference (COP28) in Dubai.

The U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center will serve as a hub for collaboration between agencies across the U.S. government as well as nonprofit and private sector partners. Data, information, and computer models from observations from the International Space Station, various satellite and airborne missions, and ground stations are available online.

The center’s data catalog will encompass insights into greenhouse gas sources, sinks, emissions, and fluxes. The center’s datasets, related algorithms, and supporting code are fully open sourced, thus enabling anyone to test the data, algorithms, and results.

“NASA data is essential to making the changes needed on the ground to protect our climate,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who viewed the endeavor as opening “critical data available to more people – from scientists running data analyses, to government officials making decisions on climate policy, to members of the public who want to understand how climate change will affect them. We’re bringing space to Earth to benefit communities across the country.”

Photo: A visualization of total carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere in 2021; courtesy of NASA.