Prof Hartmut Boesch

Professor in Earth Observation

PhD (University of Heidelberg)

Tel: +44 (0)116 252 2273

Email: hartmut.boesch@le.ac.uk

Office: Michael Atiyah Building, Room 110

Webpage of the Greenhouse Gas Remote Sensing Group

Personal details

I am a Professor in Earth Observation Science (EOS) group at the University of Leicester, which is an interdisciplinary team based in the Space Research Centre of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. I worked for several years at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on the development of the NASA Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) mission. I also joined the EOS Group at University of Leicester as a RCUK research fellow in 2007 focusing on the analysis of greenhouse gas observations from the GOSAT mission and on the preparation of future greenhouse gas missions. Elsewhere, I am a Science Team member of the NASA ACOS (formerly OCO) project and the NASA OCO-2 mission, a GOSAT RA researcher, a member of the ESA Advisory Group for the ESA Earth Explorer 8 Candidate mission Carbonsat, a co-proposer of the Tropical Carbon Mission, co-I and project manager for the ESA Climate Change Initiative (CCI) GHG theme phase 1, and investigator for the EU FP7 MACC-II and InGOS projects.

Administrative duties

• Head of Earth Observation Science (EOS) Group
• Department Research and Strategy committee

Professional activities

• Divisional Director, National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO)
• Science team member of the NASA OCO-2 project
• Member of Mission Advisory Group (MAG) for ESA Earth Explorer 8 Candidate Mission Carbonsat
• Co-chair for IWGGMS-7 and session organizer for EGU General Assembly
• Member of  scientific committee for IWGGMS-9, IWGGMS-10 and ESA Living Planet Symposium 2013
  
• Member of the NERC Peer Review College

Teaching

Modules that I delivered in past academic years include:

• Dynamics (PA1110)
• Planetary Remote Sensing (PA2610/20 – opt 2604)
• Spacecraft Imaging Systems (PA2930 – opt 2904)
• Earth System Science (CH4203)

Publications

• Takagi H, Houweling S, Andres RJ, Belikov D, Bril A, Boesch H, Butz A, Guerlet S, Hasekamp O, Maksyutov S, et al.. Influence of differences in current GOSAT XCO2 retrievals on surface flux estimation. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS 41(7):2598-2605 16 Apr 2014 
• Chevallier F, Palmer PI, Feng L, Boesch H, O'Dell CW, Bousquet P. Toward robust and consistent regional CO2 flux estimates from in situ and spaceborne measurements of atmospheric CO2. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS 41(3):1065-1070 16 Feb 2014 
• Buchwitz M, Reuter M, Bovensmann H, Pillai D, Heymann J, Schneising O, Rozanov V, Krings T, Burrows JP, Boesch H, et al.. Carbon Monitoring Satellite (CarbonSat): Assessment of atmospheric CO2 and CH4 retrieval errors by error parameterization. ATMOSPHERIC MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES 6(12):3477-3500 01 Jan 2013 
• Oshchepkov S, Bril A, Yokota T, Wennberg PO, Deutscher NM, Wunch D, Toon GC, Yoshida Y, O'Dell CW, Crisp D, et al.. Effects of atmospheric light scattering on spectroscopic observations of greenhouse gases from space. Part 2: Algorithm intercomparison in the GOSAT data processing for CO2 retrievals over TCCON sites.JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES 118(3):1493-1512 16 Feb 2013 
• Reuter M, Boesch H, Bovensmann H, Bril A, Buchwitz M, Butz A, Burrows JP, O'Dell CW, Guerlet S, Hasekamp O, et al.. A joint effort to deliver satellite retrieved atmospheric CO2 concentrations for surface flux inversions: the ensemble median algorithm EMMA. ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS 13(4):1771-1780 01 Jan 2013 
• Hewson W, Boesch H, Barkley MP, De Smedt I. Characterisation of GOME-2 formaldehyde retrieval sensitivity.ATMOSPHERIC MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES 6(2):371-386 01 Jan 2013 
• Fraser A, Palmer PI, Feng L, Boesch H, Cogan A, Parker R, Dlugokencky EJ, Fraser PJ, Krummel PB, Langenfelds RL, et al.. Estimating regional methane surface fluxes: the relative importance of surface and GOSAT mole fraction measurements. ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS 13(11):5697-5713 01 Jan 2013 
• Ross AN, Wooster MJ, Boesch H, Parker R. First satellite measurements of carbon dioxide and methane emission ratios in wildfire plumes. GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS 40(15):4098-4102 16 Aug 2013 
• Boesch H, Deutscher NM, Warneke T, Byckling K, Cogan AJ, Griffith DWT, Notholt J, Parker RJ, Wang Z. HDO/H2O ratio retrievals from GOSAT. ATMOSPHERIC MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES 6(3):599-612 01 Jan 2013
• Buchwitz M, Reuter M, Schneising O, Bovensmann H, Burrows JP, Deutscher NM, Heymann J, Noël S, Notholt J, Warneke T, et al.. The Greenhouse Gas Climate Change Initiative (GHG-CCI): Comparison and quality assessment of near-surface-sensitive satellite-derived CO2 and CH4 global data sets. Remote Sensing of Environment 2013

Research

Satellite-based remote sensing of atmospheric greenhouse gases

Development of ground-based and aircraft instruments for greenhouse gas remote sensing

Design of new satellite missions for greenhouse gases