Scientists Use CO2 Sensors On Space Needle To Help Environment

SEATTLE - You think carbon footprint and chances are the sign outside the Pacific Science Center comes to mind. It measures emissions from your car. But, when it comes to everything else, we might want to start looking up at the Space Needle.

Grab an elevator and head 600 feet straight to the top of the Space Needle and you'll find not just a beautiful view of the environment we live in, but also the latest tool to protect it.

Dr. Christopher Sabine with NOAA says the government agency installed a carbon dioxide detector and another one about 300 feet down back in February.


"So, every 5 minutes we get a new reading from both the upper and lower intakes. The idea here is to actually, specifically measure it in the city, where we're close to a lot of emissions, we have all the cars running around below us, all those things releasing CO2," said Sabine.

Sabine says NOAA decided to put that CO2 sensor on top of the Space Needle, so they could collect measurements throughout our area. And, at a height that gives scientist a bigger picture view of the problem.

"Rather than looking at each individual car, this is a more regional type measurement for trying to get an estimate of the CO2 over pretty much the whole downtown area," said Sabine.

According to Sabine the sensors send all that data from the Space Needle to NOAA and also to the Pacific Science Center.

"You see it goes up in the morning, typically we see CO2 higher in the morning during rush hour traffic and then in the afternoon it drops," said Sabine.

Ellen Lettvin with the Pacific Science Center says its exhibit educates the public about how many pollutants we're putting into the air and the simple things we can do to stop it.

"Just because people read about it all the time they don't necessarily understand what it means. If it helps them understand about what we're doing to our environment," said Lettvin.

For now Sabine says NOAA only has the two Space Needle sensors in town. But, soon scientists hope to have an entire network of them up high and down low, all working together to keep our views majestic.

"Then we can report on what are the CO2 emissions in Downtown Seattle versus Redmond or Kent or whatever," said Sabine.

NOAA, the Space Needle, and Pacific Science Center all helped fund the CO2 sensor project. You can check out those carbon dioxide numbers for yourself at the exhibit inside the Pacific Science Center at Seattle Center.