U.S. developing system to track global warming gas
Pastor Dale Morgan
*U.S. developing system to track global warming gas*
22 Mar 2007 20:19:09 GMT
Source: Reuters
NEW YORK, March 22 (Reuters) - The United States is developing a system
to track atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas,
which could help scientists project future climate change, a government
researcher said.
The CarbonTracker monitors carbon dioxide levels throughout North
America to create an Internet-based map. Carbon-emitting areas, such as
cities and industry centers, show up in red and carbon sinks, such as
forests, are represented in blue.
Pieter Tans, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration's greenhouse gas cycles group, which created the system,
said it could help researchers verify their climate models. It could
also facilitate any future trade in carbon credits by monitoring whether
industries are actually cutting emissions, he said.
The tracker will soon use more data from sources, including monitors in
airplanes and countries beyond North America, to broaden the map.
"We hope this will evolve into a much denser network, so we can say
meaningful things about whether states or large metropolitan areas are
successful in limiting net emissions of CO2," Tans said in a telephone
interview.
The United States, the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide, does not
regulate greenhouse gases.
But banks, as well as carbon trading firms that took shape when the
European Union started trading carbon credits in 2005, are gearing up
for potential U.S. trade. They take heart in the growing political
pressure in the country to tackle climate change by putting mandatory
limits on the gas.
Canada's federal environment office, Environment Canada, provided a
quarter of the data for the project, Tans said.
Tans said the project was working with researchers from China and India
to try to expand the project to those countries, which are growing
carbon emitters.