OCO blew up on launch, but OCO-2, its successor, has been producing data since 2014. This nature run was from 2006, which predates the OCO-2 era, and predates

OCO blew up on launch, but OCO-2, its successor, has been producing data since 2014. This nature run was from 2006, which predates the OCO-2 era, and predates GOSAT, another CO2 satellite. It may overlap partly with SCIAMACHY, an ESA mission. But in summary, I don't think the video was heavily constrained by actual CO2 observations, which are done only at a small number of sites on the ground (TCCON or FTIR). The video was probably constructed based on models of plant respiration (which is observed, indirectly, by remote sensing), winds (ditto, of course), and ground emitters. OCO-2 has offered more significant constraints on global CO2, with a roughly 2km x 2km footprint (per pixel), 1ppm accuracy (in a ~400 ppm quantity), and global coverage every 16 days. There are some videos of observations (not models) at: http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/Videos/ http://oco.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/Videos/