The Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2) is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellite launched in 2014. Although OCO-2 was not designed for monitoring power plant emissions, in some cases, carbon dioxide (CO2) observations from OCO-2 can be used to quantify daily CO2 emissions from individual coal power plants by fitting the data to plume model simulations. This data catalogue entry consists of the CO2 measurements by OCO-2 for the 7 power plant overpasses or flybys that were used for quantifying CO2 emissions in Nassar et al. (2017). This research affirms that a constellation of future CO2 imaging satellites, optimized for point sources, could monitor emissions from individual fossil fuel burning power plants to support the implementation of climate policies.
Nassar, R., Hill, T. G., McLinden, C. A., Wunch, D., Jones, D. B. A., & Crisp, D. (2017). Quantifying CO2 emissions from individual power plants from space. Geophysical Research Letters, 44. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074702