AIRMO: Novel Micro-lidar Powered Spectrometer for GHG Monitoring from CubeSat

A new generation of satellites using novel LiDAR concept could provide more accurate monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions, helping to improve our understanding of the role of human activity in climate change. The use of satellite constellations for this purpose has several advantages. First, it would allow for near-global coverage, providing a more complete picture of emissions than is possible with ground-based monitoring. Second, the use of LiDAR would allow for more accurate measurements, as it can provide aerosols and subvisible clouds extinction and scattering properties, and measure local winds correcting the bias and error in Radiative Transfer algorithms. This would be a valuable tool for understanding and mitigating climate change, as it would provide more accurate data on emissions from different regions and sectors. It could also help to identify areas where emissions reductions are most urgently needed. The main goal of the project is to explore an approach of deploying a network of new data sources for GHG monitoring with high temporal and special resolution. The target parameters are 50 m resolution for CH₄ and CO₂ with 4 passes per day over the area of interest. This will enable new emissions monitoring applications to combat the climate crisis by delivering L2 level data about greenhouse gas emissions concentrations on the predefined location. The deployment of such a system would require significant investment, but the benefits would be considerable. It is therefore worth considering as part of the efforts to combat climate change. This paper will explore the state of the art in this area and discuss future directions.