Metrology for stable isotope reference standards

Immediate action is required to prevent irreversible changes to the Earth’s climate due to greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers need to be able to discriminate man-made from natural emissions in the atmosphere, to provide governments with accurate emissions inventory data and verify progress towards emissions reduction targets. However, this cannot be achieved with the existing measurement infrastructure.

This project has developed a new infrastructure including methods and instrumentation to underpin measurements of stable isotopes of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, two major greenhouse gases, which enable their origin to be identified. This will be instrumental in providing more accurate, comparable data to separate various man-made sources of greenhouse gas emissions from each other, as well as from natural sources. This will enable governments to develop accurate emissions inventories and models to comply with legislation, and inform new policy and better abatement strategies to help prevent dangerous climate change.

EMPIR project 19ENV05 STELLAR builds on this work.