Vision and Framework for Strategy and Planning
Published August 2005

Also available:
PDF version of the full report

Order a hardcopy of this report from GCRIO Online Catalog.

Back to
Table of Contents

CCTP Goal 5: Improve Capabilities to Measure and Monitor GHG Emissions

Improved technologies for measuring, estimating, and monitoring GHG emissions and the flows of GHGs across various media and boundaries, will help characterize emission levels and mark progress in reducing emissions. With enhanced means for GHG measuring and monitoring, future strategies to reduce, avoid, capture, or sequester CO₂ and other GHG emissions can be better supported, guided, enabled and evaluated. Key areas of technology R&D related to this goal are grouped into four areas:

Anthropogenic Emissions

Measurement and monitoring technologies can enhance and provide direct and indirect emissions measurements for point and mobile sources using data transmission and archiving, along with inventory-based reporting systems and local-scale atmospheric measurements or indicators.

Carbon Capture, Storage and Sequestration

Advances in measurement and monitoring technologies for geologic storage can assess the integrity of subsurface reservoirs, transportation and pipeline systems, and potential leakage from geologic storage. Measurement and monitoring systems for terrestrial sequestration are also needed to integrate carbon sequestration measurements of different components of the landscape (e.g., soils versus vegetation) across a range of spatial scales.

Non-CO₂ Greenhouse Gases

Monitoring the emissions of methane, nitrous oxide, black carbon aerosols, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexachloride is important because of their high global warming potential of these GHGs and, for some, the long atmospheric lifetimes. Advanced technologies can make an important contribution to direct and indirect measurement and monitoring approaches for both point and diffused sources of these emissions.

Integrated Measuring and Monitoring System Architecture

An effective measurement and monitoring capability is one that can collect, analyze, and integrate data across spatial and temporal scales, and at many different levels of resolution. This may require technologies such as sensors and continuous emission monitors, protocols for data gathering and analysis, development of emissions accounting methods, and coordination of related basic science and research in collaboration with the Climate Change Science Program and the Integrated Earth Observation System.²¹