Pollution hunting in the light and shadows     John Burrows, director of the Institute of Remote Sensing / Environmental Physics, who conceived the SCIAMACHY instrument.   Cars and industrial activity contribute to the 7 gigatons of carbon dioxide released each year into the atmosphere   SCIAMACHY is an imaging spectrometer whose primary mission objective is to perform global measurements of trace gases in the troposphere and in the stratosphere. The solar radiation transmitted, backscattered and reflected from the atmosphere is recorded at relatively high resolution (0.2 nm to 0.5 nm) over the range 240 nm to 1700 nm, and in selected regions between 2.0 µm and 2.4 µm.   Michael Buchwitz, colleague at University of Bremen     Envisat artist's impression Release date: 13 January 2010