Upper-air
The world-first balloon-born CO2 sonde, the combination with GPS radiosonde and small NDIR type CO2 sensor, was developed to measure the vertical profile of CO2. CO2 sonde can be operated with conventional weather balloon regardless of the observation site (e.g., isolated areas or remote islands), weather condition and time (day/night).
CO2 concentration is measured in the troposphere (0—10 km) with about 300 m vertical resolution. Adoption of NDIR senor facilitates easy preparation for preflight and operation. Furthermore, the embedded two reference gases achieve high measurement accuracy of less than 1ppm.
CO2 sonde has been utilized for 1) Validation with other observation method such as aircraft, tower or satellite (GOSAT etc.), 2) Evaluation of CO2 absorption/emission in the forest, or 3) Long-term CO2monitoring for climate change prediction and global warming prevention activity, etc.