Carbon dioxide being the vital part of our carbon cycle has major impact on the climatic changes. Scientists have warned that carbon dioxide released by human activity like burning of fossil fuel and deforestation has disturbed the balance of natural carbon cycles.  A portion of Carbon dioxide emitted stays in the earth atmosphere and the remaining portion is observed by the ocean, but the location and identity of the natural land sinks believed to be absorbing the rest is not clearly understood.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) will clearly portrait the sources of carbon dioxide, the process that pulls out carbon dioxide from earth atmosphere. 

 Michael Freilich, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division in Washington SAYS, “With the OCO-2 mission, NASA will be contributing an important new source of global observations to the scientific challenge of better understanding our Earth and its future."

Ref: http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/june/new-nasa-space-observatory-to-study-carbon-conundrums/