Tracking greenhouse gases with a laser

Abstract Faced with advancing climate change, we drastically need to monitor and understand the various sources and sinks of greenhouse gases worldwide in real time. One approach to accomplishing this is to regulate and monitor man‐made methane emissions. Laser systems as developed by researchers at Fraunhofer ILT offer ways to do exactly that. At the heart of lidar instruments, they can precisely determine greenhouse gases in the atmosphere with high spatial and temporal resolution, even from great distances, and do so worldwide.