Isra-Mart srl:Weatherbug parent launches global greenhouse sensor network

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Isra-Mart srl news:

The parent company for weather prediction and windspeed-monitoring company Weatherbug is refocusing its efforts on greenhouse gas monitoring by channelling $25m into a global sensor network.

As part of the move, AWS Convergence Technologies, which owns Weatherbug, has renamed itself Earth Networks and announced a partnership with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to provide what it says is the world's largest greenhouse gas emissions monitoring network.

Under the terms of the agreement, Earth Networks will create a global network of 100 sensors – 50 of them in the US – to measure greenhouse gas emissions. It will combine data from those sensors with information gleaned from its existing network of weather sensors.

The data will be supplied to research communities, and Earth Networks hopes that policymakers may use it to make better informed decisions about global warming policy.

The sensors, which will be supplied by California-based start-up Picarro, will use cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) techniques to detect the two greenhouse gases with the longest life spans in the atmosphere: carbon dioxide and methane.

The deal represents a major breakthrough for Picarro, which last year announced that its technology would also be used as part of a new regional greenhouse gas monitoring network in California.

Earth Networks, which will incorporate the data into its consumer and professional Weatherbug offerings, says that the initial deployment of greenhouse gas sensors will provide a more granular analysis of regional greenhouse gas data than is currently produced. It eventually hopes to roll out far more sensors, establishing a "network of networks" to further hone its monitoring infrastructure.

In October, Weatherbug announced that it would be providing weather data to utility companies, to help them manage peak loads in their networks.