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There are some really neat looking videos on the NASA website showing how carbon dioxide moves throughout the earth's atmosphere.
Scientists have made ground-based measurements of carbon dioxide for decades and in July NASA launched the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite to make global, space-based carbon observations. But the simulation — the product of a new computer model that is among the highest-resolution ever created — is the first to show in such fine detail how carbon dioxide actually moves through the atmosphere.
The main article has a video that shows a world wide view over the year 2006. It runs about 3 minutes. Close-ups on a month's time scale can be found here and each of the 3 videos run about 30 seconds.
The main article mentions that CO2 concentrations reached 400 ppm (parts per million) for the first time in the Spring of 2014. Before the industrial revolution, it was about 270 ppm. The sub article mentions that the videos show 375 (dark blue) to 395 (light purple) ppm.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Friday November 21 2014, @04:59AM
My guess is if they could have, they would have.
I'm no planetary scientist, but based on the satellite maps of the weather, satellite data comes in pretty chunky and not very detailed. I think we've been spoiled by the detailed imagery by Google Maps. Unfortunately, it is a lot easier to take detailed photos than get detailed data like carbon dioxide emissions.
Personally, I think the models are pretty good. Fluid dynamic modeling is really hard and, if my understanding is correct, they got a model to match a year's worth of data.