Sorry pal, this has nothing to do with you. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Researchers have developed a much more accurate way of measuring U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels using a high resolution map which is 100 times more detail than what was available in the past. The new map and system is called 'Vulcan'.

Earlier maps of greenhouse emissions were based on population areas of the U.S., while the new system is based on actual greenhouse gas emissions. The Vulcan model examines CO2 emissions at local levels on an hourly basis. To create the Vulcan maps, the research team developed a method to extract the CO2 information by transforming data on local air pollution, such as carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide emissions, which are tracked by the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy and other governmental agencies, according to the Earth Observatory press release.

One thing the scientists found out was that the Southeastern U.S. was a much larger source of greenhouse emissions than earlier estimated, while emissions from the Northeast were overestimated.

Exerpts from the press release.............

James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says Vulcan provides a "check" to judge the accuracy of existing satellite data.

"The high-resolution map from Vulcan also provides a picture of emission sources in a way that the public and policy-makers can understand, which may be helpful in discussing what we will do about the climate problem," Hansen says.

"Ten years ago there might have been resistance to the notion of examining who is responsible for the CO2 emissions in such a visually detailed way," Gurney says. "However, what Vulcan makes utterly clear is that CO2 emissions cannot be exclusively affixed to SUV drivers, manufacturers or large power producers; everybody is responsible. We need to look for real solutions, and have a deeper discussion about energy use. It's not about politics. It's about doing good science and solving the problem, and we can all be a part of that."

The three-year project, which was funded by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy under the North American Carbon Program, involved researchers from Purdue University, Colorado State University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.