The best perspective is usually an objective one, and what could possibly provide a more objective view of the Earth than a satellite?
In order to fully grasp our climate change predicament, Japan is launching the Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) on January 21 to monitor greenhouse gases around the world.
According to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, GOSAT will allow scientists to calculate the density of carbon dioxide and methane from 56,000 locations on the Earth's surface.
GOSAT is a massive improvement over Japan's last climate change satellite, which was only able to observe 282 different sites.
The satellite, which will be in orbit for five years, will collect data once a month. Preliminary data should be ready by this coming April or May, and U.N. officials hope information collected from GOSAT will be used in a report from the U.N. panel of scientists due in 2013.
Even more climate change data will be collected later this year when NASA launches its Orbiting Carbon Observatory, which will collect carbon dioxide measurements in Earth's atmosphere.