Objectives
Climate warming is driven by increased concentrations of greenhouse gasses (GHGs), including carbon dioxide (CO₂) and methane (CH₄) in the atmosphere, which have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. In order to limit climate warming to a target of less than 2°C, world leaders recently agreed to substantially reduce emissions of a key greenhouse gas methane, and previously identified targets for anthropogenic CO₂ emissions reductions are currently being implemented by governmental agencies across Europe. However, natural variability and climate-driven changes in CO₂ emissions are a large unknown in calculations for CO₂ emission budgeting (Global carbon project). Methane sources are split between anthropogenic (⁓60%) and biogenic (⁓40%) emissions, but the specific sources of the rapid increases in atmospheric CH₄ over the past 15 years remain unclear along with the relative magnitudes of these emissions. New technology for acquiring in-situ observation datasets allowing to reach under sampled areas (e.g Arctic and high-latitude wetlands) may allow better assessment of CO₂ and CH₄ emissions sources, but current monitoring networks do not allow differentiation between various anthropogenic and natural sources. Recent advances in satellite technology, atmospheric inversion modeling, and measurement techniques, have made the detection and monitoring of methane gas leaks associated with infrastructure possible. However, existing techniques are not yet deployable at scales large enough to affect inventories of CO₂ and CH₄ emissions because of the expertise and amounts of data required to identify exact sources and levels of gasses.
The main objective of MISO is to develop and deploy an autonomous in-situ observation platform for use in hard to reach areas, for detecting and quantifying carbon dioxide and methane gasses. The platform will use a combination of stationary and mobile (drone) solutions requiring minimum on-site intervention when deployed. This aims ultimately to increase geographical coverage of areas with measurements and long time series availability of in situ GHG observations.

Project Partners
• Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI)