This week NASA has launched a satellite to track CO2 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, USA.

A global picture of human and natural sources of carbon dioxide will be provided by the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2). The data produced will also be used to identify carbon dioxide ‘sinks’, which are places in the sea and land which naturally pull carbon dioxide out of the earth’s atmosphere for storage.

Michael Gunson, OCO-2 project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said: 'Knowing what parts of earth are helping remove carbon from our atmosphere will help us understand whether they can keep doing so in the future.'

Although the mission is named OCO-2, it is actually NASA's first spacecraft dedicated to measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. The original OCO spacecraft, launched from Vandenberg more than five years ago, never reached orbit due to a separation anomaly in the launch vehicle. OCO-2 is NASA's second attempt.

To find out more visit http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/24jun_oco2/