CO2 and NO2 distributions over Greece as seen by OCO-2 and TROPOMI

Greenhouse gases are the driving force behind human-induced global warming. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the greenhouse gas (GHG) with the longer lifetime in the atmosphere, in the order of hundreds of years, and the largest contribution to the radiative forcing of the atmosphere due to its increasing levels since the pre-industrial era. Therefore, monitoring and restraining CO2 anthropogenic sources is an urgent matter. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is co-emitted with CO2 and due to its short atmospheric lifetime (of the order of a day) it can be used to pinpoint CO2 emission sources. Satellite observations of CO2 levels provide invaluable information in order to understand its levels, and sources and sinks. In this study we investigate the distribution of CO2 and NO2 over Greece for 2019 using data from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) satellite for CO2 and from the Sentinel-5 Precursor TROPOMI satellite instrument for NO2 in order to identify hot spots for CO2 emissions.