Japan's space agency will launch a satellite on Wednesday (January 21), to monitor global greenhouse gases in the fight against climate change.


TANEGASHIMA SPACE CENTER,KAGOSHIMA PREFECTURE JAPAN AEROSPACE EXPLORATION AGENCY HANDOUT -
The satellite is scheduled to blast off on Wednesday on its mission
to monitor greenhouse gases around the world. It's
hoped that the data it collects will helps global efforts to combat climate
change.

The Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) will orbit around the
earth in less than two hours and will enable scientists to collect new data
every three days.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), in charge of the GOSAT
project, has spent about 35 billion yen (372.9 million U.S. dollars) over five
years
"GOSAT is a satellite to observe the world distribution of carbon
dioxide and methane, and GOSAT really detects the infrared signal absorbed by
the greenhouse gases," Takashi Hamazaki, manager of the GOSAT project,
told Reuters.

GOSAT, nicknamed "Ibuki" after the Japanese word for
"vitality," will also cover the atmosphere over oceans.

Equipped with two sensors, GOSAT will track infrared rays from the
Earth, which will help calculate the densities of the two greenhouse gases,
because they absorb the rays at certain wavelengths.

The satellite will also pick up any sign of clouds, enabling it to
process data only when the sky is clear.

GOSAT, set to be in orbit for five years, will collect data once a
month, with preliminary data from the satellite expected to be ready for
researchers in April or May.

The satellite's launch comes as Japan comes under pressure to meet its
2008-2012 Kyoto Protocol target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and tries
to be more vocal in global talks on fighting climate change.

U.N. talks on climate change are aiming to work out a new treaty by
mid-December on cutting emissions, but rich and poor nations have been deeply
divided on how new goals should be set.

Yvo de Boer, the UN's climate change chief, said Japan's launch of
GOSAT is a crucial step to combat global climate change.
"Being able to measure what is happening is incredibly important
to developing a robust international climate change response," Boer told
Reuters in Tokyo. "You wouldn't expect it in this modern day and age, but
actually our ability to, to monitor green house gas emissions is still
relatively weak. Weak in industrialised countries, but even weaker in many
developing countries so anything that we can do to improve global monitoring
systems is incredibly important to the credibility of the process."

NASA is sponsoring its own Orbiting Carbon Observatory to be launched
this year which is set to collect measurements on carbon dioxide in the
Earth's atmosphere.