Monitoring Austria’s greenhouse gases with satellite data

The final workshop of the GHG-KIT lead project (Austrian Space Program, ASAP 18) will take place at TU Wien from 26 to 27 February 2025.

The aim of GHG-KIT was to develop the prototype of a system that determines the concentration of greenhouse gases in Austria in a combination of satellite and ground measurements as well as model calculations.

A significant global reduction in greenhouse gases is necessary in order to reduce further global warming and the associated consequences.

In order to comply with international framework conditions (e.g. Paris Climate Agreement, EU Green Deal and regulation on land use, land use change and forestry), all countries report their greenhouse gas emissions data annually.

Cooperation between teams from science and industry

New technical developments, such as new measuring devices on satellites, will make it possible to investigate the concentration of pollutants and greenhouse gases across the board with a high degree of accuracy in future,

This is where the GHG-KIT project came in: over the past three years, a prototype system for monitoring greenhouse gases in Austria has been developed in a collaboration between Austrian teams from science and industry.

The consortium consisted of the companies GeoVille (project management), SISTEMA, Cloudflight and Earth Observation Data Center (EODC) as well as the scientific organizations GeoSphere Austria, University of Vienna and Vienna University of Technology. The Federal Environment Agency, which is responsible for the annual reporting of greenhouse gases in Austria, was very closely involved.

The project ran from 2022 to 2025 and was funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology.

From February 26 to 27, 2025, the results will be presented at the final workshop of the GHG-KIT project at TU Wien.

Focal points: Sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and the quality of satellite and model data

One of the focal points of the GHG-KIT project was to determine as precisely as possible: Where do emissions of greenhouse gases come from and are they man-made or naturally caused? How and to what extent do greenhouse gases disappear, for example when plants absorb carbon dioxide? How accurately do satellite data and model calculations capture the situation in Austria?

To answer these questions, measurements from satellites and ground stations were combined with model calculations in order to be able to analyze short-term and long-term changes across the board. The monitoring system was also prepared for upcoming technological innovations.

System prepared for future ESA satellite generation

‘For example, in the GHG-KIT project, we have developed methods to further improve the monitoring of greenhouse gases in Austria in the future with CO2M data,’ says Marcus Hirtl, Head of the Department of Chemical Weather Forecasting at GeoSphere Austria, ‘the CO2M mission of the European Space Agency ESA will provide data on the concentration of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen dioxide with a new generation of satellites from 2026.’

Austria’s complex terrain is a major challenge

The investigations in the project also showed that determining the concentration of greenhouse gases in Austria on a large scale poses particular challenges. ‘Similar to weather forecasting, the very complex terrain due to the many mountains and valleys results in major regional differences and peculiarities that need to be taken into account when using satellite data and calculating dispersion models,’ says Marcus Hirtl, ‘essentially, we can already calculate the sources, displacements and sinks of greenhouse gases qualitatively well using the methods developed. But we have also learned in the project that, in addition to the current and future satellite measurements, it will be necessary to have even more direct measurements from ground stations, especially near cities, in order to be able to draw conclusions about emission sources as accurately as possible using our methods.’

Important preparatory work for the next satellite missions

The work in the GHG-KIT project has provided important preliminary work for the efficient use of data from the next satellite missions. As soon as the new satellite data provide more precise values for Austria, the methods will be used to determine greenhouse gas fluxes and, above all, their sources even more accurately in future.