Q. What do you hope to achieve with the GOSAT observations?
I'd like to watch the Earth breathing. I'd like to make a visual model of the Earth and its various ecosystems' inhalation and exhalation of CO2 and methane. I think that it will have quite an impact on people if we can show an image of CO2 flowing on the wind. That's what I'm most looking forward to. I'm especially keen to show children dynamic video of the Earth breathing. Global warming will directly affect today's younger generation and that is why I'd like them to understand the Earth very well. GOSAT is for all humanity, 50, 100 years from now, so I'd like to show the achievements of GOSAT to children who will be living in those times.
I'm also very motivated to contribute to greenhouse-gas reduction by detecting methane leakages. There are many natural-gas pipelines in the U.S., Siberia, and the rest of the world. Fact is that quite a lot of gas is leaking from these thousands of kilometers of pipeline, reportedly as much as 1.5 percent at the moment, which is greatly attribute to global warming. I think GOSAT will be capable of observing leakage points with spatial resolution of 10 km, and this rapid detection could help greatly reduce greenhouse gases by allowing leaks to be fixed quickly. Gas leaks are, of course, traceable today, but only “somewhere in a 100 km area,” therefore it takes time to find the exact spot. No action has yet been taken on this agenda, but I'm hoping that we can establish a system where we have direct contact with the countries and companies that own the pipelines. I think that JAXA will be able to make great international and social contributions in this area.
Q. Was GOSAT born in response to the Kyoto Protocol?
Initially, the development had nothing to do with the Kyoto Protocol. It started in 1999 as GCOM-A1, the Global Change Observation Mission-A1, with scientific objectives. It was designed to measure and analyze trace elements in the atmosphere, such as ozone. In the meantime the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997, and the project was revised. To achieve targets under the protocol, we must have accurate measurement of CO2 over the lands where human activity is causing greenhouse-gas emissions. However, it eventually became apparent that the observation methodology of GCOM-A1 was insufficient. The method at that time was to aim a sensor at the Sun and analyze the elements in the atmosphere with very bright light at sunrise and at sunset as seen from the satellite. But then, the concentration close to the Earth's surface would not be measured precisely. Therefore in 2002-03, the project was totally revised and the observation method was also changed. To observe the concentration of greenhouse gases at altitudes of 3 km or less, we revise the sensor to look in the direction of the Earth and measure solar beams reflected at the Earth's surface. We also needed to increase the sensitivity of the instrument. And in addition, we changed the mission objective to be the thorough observation of CO2 and methane for global warming prevention. In due course, transforming the project from a scientific satellite for studying the atmosphere to a demonstration satellite for practical use, we gave it a new name: GOSAT, the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite. It has been four years since the start of the project, in April 2003. With the new sensor, which is completely different from the one designed for GCOM-A1, we have taken great strides in a very short period of time, thanks to the staff at MOE, the NIES and the GOSAT Science Team, who are co-facilitators of the project. I also think that successful innovation was made possible by the fact that GOSAT is a medium-sized satellite, which allows more flexibility, and that it has a single purpose, to “measure the density of greenhouse gases.”
Q. Do you think the Kyoto Protocol is an adequate policy for global-warming prevention? Had global warming been discussed prior to the protocol?
Researchers have already considered the probability of a relationship between the increase in greenhouse gases and global warming back in 1920s. The first person to calculate the rise of the Earth's temperature if CO2 doubled was a Japanese meteorologist, Dr. Syukuro Manabe, in the 1960s. Since then, there has been a gradual rise in the awareness of global warming as a catastrophic problem. At that time, however, very little was known about it, and there were many controversies about cause and effect, including theories that oceans absorbed greenhouse gases emitted by humans and that the impact of volcanic eruptions and the solar cycle was greater than that of human activity.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was launched in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Since then, reports on global warming have been written and peer reviewed by more than 1,000 scientists. The IPCC reports are the distillation of the wisdom of scientists around the world. The reports have concluded that global warming is an indisputable fact, and that greenhouse gases produced by humans are the primary cause. We have now put a period to a long dispute over global warming, and a firm step towards the future was taken by the Kyoto Protocol. Global-warming prevention has become a universal concern, and I think we are taking an absolutely remarkable step, because human beings, who in the past have been capable of taking action only after the occurrence of disasters, have now stood up for our future, looking 100 years ahead.
However I still don't think the Kyoto Protocol is sufficient. Its requirement of greenhouse-gas reductions by 6 to 8 percent from 1990 levels is not enough. It has been reported that we must reduce emissions by two thirds or three quarters in order to keep the average temperature from increasing by 2?degreeC. If the global temperature increases by just a few degrees, the climate will become unstable, and we'll experience conditions such as large scale typhoons, or unusually hot or cold weather. It is also believed that the consequences of a global temperature increase of more than 2 degreeC are not only climate change, but also further acceleration of global warming due to the melting of polar ice, and the spread of infectious diseases through the increased proliferation of mosquitoes.
I think that the Kyoto Protocol is an insufficient solution to global warming prevention because, aside from the insufficiency of its reduction targets, the United States and China are outside the framework, despite being, respectively, the top two producers of greenhouse-gas emissions, followed by Russia and Japan. I think that the U.S. and China, and all the other nations, must take collaborative actions on global warming, or our Earth will face catastrophic consequences.
