Experts say that greenhouse gases produced by human activity represent one of the biggest causes of global warming. The Intragovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international organization of specialists that conducts scientific research on climate change and evaluates related climate policies, released its Fifth Assessment Report in 2013. In the document, the authors warned that “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal... It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century... Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system.”
Hoping to advance research on the global warming phenomenon, JAXA has joined forces with the Ministry of the Environment and the National Institute for Environmental Studies to develop “IBUKI” (GOSAT) - the Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite - and commence GOSAT-based observations of carbon dioxide and methane in 2009. In situ observation of greenhouse gasses on the ground has limitation that many areas are left blank without sufficient observation data due to limited number of the ground observation stations, and that only observation data close to observation points can be acquired though it is highly accurate. On the other hand, satellite observation from top of the atmosphere enables global and comprehensive understanding of greenhouse gasses distribution from their emission sources.
As the successor to the IBUKI mission, "IBUKI-2" (GOSAT-2) aims to gather observations of greenhouse gases with higher levels of accuracy via even higher-performance onboard observation sensors. The project will serve to provide observation data to environmental administrations and drive international anti-global warming efforts.