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BASC Reports
 | Letter Report on the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (2009)
A climate treaty could be negotiated by the end of 2009, yet current methods for estimating greenhouse gas emissions have limitations for treaty monitoring and verification. This National Research Council letter report assesses whether NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), which failed on launch in early 2009, could be of use in monitoring emissions. The report concludes that the observatory could have tested the engineering designs and measurement concepts required to develop a robust capability for monitoring emissions from space. It also could have monitored carbon dioxide emissions from large local sources, such as cities and power plants, providing the first few years of baseline data for a climate treaty.
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