Energy Development Corp., the renewable energy arm of the Lopez Group, teamed up with local and international scientific organizations to establish within EDC’s Burgos wind farm in Ilocos Norte a hi-tech monitoring station to measure in precise terms atmospheric greenhouse gases, mainly carbon gases, behind global warming leading to climate change.
Studies indicate that GHGs play a big role in adverse weather patterns such as floods, droughts, as well as more destructive and more frequent typhoons, associated with climate change. Thus, measuring the rising GHG is key to managing climate risks.
The scientific facility that opened recently inside the EDC wind farm now forms part of the Total Carbon Column Observing Network, a global linkup of scientific stations dedicated to the precise measurements of atmospheric GHGs, such as carbon dioxide and methane.
Scientists observed that the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean contributes to the warming when temperature is trapped by its water vapor. Notwithstanding the area’s importance, there was no TCCON station to measure GHGs in Southeast Asia, including the Pacific Ocean.
The Burgos TCCON station–the 25th in the world but the only one in Southeast Asia—helps fill up the “measuring gap” by serving as primary validation station in Southeast Asia for Japan’s Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite-2 and NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2). Both GOSAT-2 and OCO-2 can sample the globe within a few days to measure global carbon; but these satellites rely on ground stations, such as TCCON, to validate their measurements.
EDC, with First Philippine Holdings Corp., collaborated with the National Institute for Environmental Studies and Meteorological Research Institute of Japan, the University of Wollongong of Australia and the UP Institute of Environmental Science and Meteorology to put up the TCCON station within the Burgos wind farm. NIES agreed to finance the project.