Inside Climate News: Will NASA Kill a Pair of Critical Climate Satellites?

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 and -3, (or OCO-2 and -3) have been circling the globe for years, gathering some of the best data available on carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. They helped scientists determine that natural systems struggled in the extreme heat of 2023 and failed to pull in as much CO2 as normal. They’ve helped researchers track early indicators of agricultural drought in India, and measure climate-warming emissions coming out of coal power plants in Montana, Poland and Canada. They are the “gold standard” for measuring the most abundant climate-warming gas in the atmosphere from space, according to NASA. Yet the space administration has proposed ending the satellites’ missions next year, part of the Trump administration’s proposed 24 percent reduction in the agency’s budget. Bigger PICTURE.