The Potential of the Geostationary Carbon Cycle Observatory (GeoCarb) to Provide Multi-scale Constraints on the Carbon Cycle in the Americas

The second NASA Earth Venture Mission, Geostationary Carbon Cycle Observatory (GeoCarb), will provide measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO), and solar-induced fluorescence (SIF) from Geostationary Orbit (GEO). The GeoCarb mission will deliver daily maps of column concentrations of CO2, CH4, and CO over the observed landmasses in the Americas at a spatial resolution of roughly 10 x 10 km. Persistent measurements of CO2, CH4, CO, and SIF will contribute significantly to resolving carbon emissions and illuminating biotic processes at urban to continental scales, which will allow the improvement of modeled biogeochemical processes in Earth System Models as well as monitor the response of the biosphere to disturbance. This is essential to improve understanding of the Carbon-Climate connection. In this paper, we introduce the instrument and the GeoCarb Mission, and we demonstrate the potential scientific contribution of the mission through a series of CO2 and CH4 simulation experiments. We find that GeoCarb will be able to constrain emissions at urban to continental spatial scales on weekly to annual time scales. The GeoCarb mission particularly builds upon the Orbiting Carbon Obserevatory-2 (OCO-2), which is flying in Low Earth Orbit.