WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- A team of U.S. researchers published the first global satellite maps of the key greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in Earth's mid-troposphere, an area about 8 kms above Earth, the U.S. space agency NASA reported Friday.

    The team's study reveals new information on how carbon dioxide, which directly contributes to climate change, is distributed in Earth's atmosphere and moves around our world.

    The team, led by Moustafa Chahine of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, found the distribution of carbon dioxide in the mid-troposphere is strongly influenced by major surface sources of carbon dioxide and by large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns, such as the jet streams and weather systems in Earth's mid-latitudes.

    The new maps reveal enhanced concentrations of carbon dioxide south of the northern hemisphere jet stream, in a band between 30 and 40 degrees north latitude. These enhanced concentrations correspond to a well-documented belt of pollution in the northern hemisphere mid-latitudes.

    Patterns of carbon dioxide distribution were also found to differ significantly between the northern hemisphere, with its many land masses, and the southern hemisphere, which is largely covered by ocean.

    The findings are based on data collected from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft between September 2002 and July 2008. The research products will be used by scientists to refine models of the processes that transport carbon dioxide within Earth's atmosphere.

    Chahine said the AIRS data will complement existing and planned ground and aircraft measurements of carbon dioxide, as well as upcoming satellite missions to study Earth's carbon cycle and climate.