Dec 14 2015

From The Space Library

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Revision as of 17:45, 21 December 2015

Release 15-233 New NASA Satellite Maps Show Human Fingerprint on Global Air Quality

Using new, high-resolution global satellite maps of air quality indicators, NASA scientists tracked air pollution trends over the last decade in various regions and 195 cities around the globe. The findings were presented Monday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco and published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.

"These changes in air quality patterns aren't random," said Bryan Duncan, an atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who led the research. "When governments step in and say we're going to build something here or we're going to regulate this pollutant, you see the impact in the data."

Duncan and his team examined observations made from 2005 to 2014 by the Dutch-Finnish Ozone Monitoring Instrument aboard NASA's Aura satellite. One of the atmospheric gases the instrument detects is nitrogen dioxide, a yellow-brown gas that is a common emission from cars, power plants and industrial activity. Nitrogen dioxide can quickly transform into ground-level ozone, a major respiratory pollutant in urban smog. Nitrogen dioxide hotspots, used as an indicator of general air quality, occur over most major cities in developed and developing nations.

The science team analyzed year-to-year trends in nitrogen dioxide levels around the world. To look for possible explanations for the trends, the researchers compared the satellite record to information about emission controls regulations, national gross domestic product and urban growth.

"With the new high-resolution data, we are now able to zoom down to study pollution changes within cities, including from some individual sources, like large power plants," said Duncan.

Previous work using satellites at lower resolution missed variations over short distances. This new space-based view offers consistent information on pollution for cities or countries that may have limited ground-based air monitoring stations. The resulting trend maps tell a unique story for each region.

The United States and Europe are among the largest emitters of nitrogen dioxide. Both regions also showed the most dramatic reductions between 2005 and 2014. Nitrogen dioxide has decreased from 20 to 50 percent in the United States, and by as much as 50 percent in Western Europe. Researchers concluded that the reductions are largely due to the effects of environmental regulations that require technological improvements to reduce pollution emissions from cars and power plants.

China, the world's growing manufacturing hub, saw an increase of 20 to 50 percent in nitrogen dioxide, much of it occurring over the North China Plain. Three major Chinese metropolitan areas -- Beijing, Shanghai, and the Pearl River Delta -- saw nitrogen dioxide reductions of as much as 40 percent.

The South African region encompassing Johannesburg and Pretoria has the highest nitrogen dioxide levels in the Southern Hemisphere, but the high-resolution trend map shows a complex situation playing out between the two cities and neighboring power plants and industrial areas.

"We had seen seemingly contradictory trends over this area of industrial South Africa in previous studies," said Anne Thompson, co-author and chief scientist for atmospheric chemistry at Goddard. "Until we had this new space view, it was a mystery."

The Johannesburg-Pretoria metro area saw decreases after new cars were required in 2008 to have better emissions controls. The heavily industrialized area just east of the cities, however, shows both decreases and increases. The decreases may be associated with fewer emissions from eight large power plants east of the cities since the decrease occurs over their locations. However, emissions increases occur from various other mining and industrial activities to the south and further east.

In the Middle East, increased nitrogen dioxide levels since 2005 in Iraq, Kuwait and Iran likely correspond to economic growth in those countries. However, in Syria, nitrogen dioxide levels decreased since 2011, most likely because of the civil war, which has interrupted economic activity and displaced millions of people.

Release 15-220 NASA Studies High Clouds, Saharan Dust from EPIC View

From a dusty atmosphere stretching across the Atlantic Ocean to daily views of clouds at sunrise, a new NASA camera keeping a steady eye on the sunlit side of Earth is yielding new insights about our changing planet.

With NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), affixed to NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) about one million miles from Earth, scientists are getting a new view of our planet’s clouds, land surfaces, aerosols and more. Science results from the first EPIC images were discussed Monday at a media briefing at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

EPIC captures a color image of the sunlit side of Earth at least once every two hours, allowing researchers to track features as the planet rotates in the instrument’s field of view.

“With EPIC, you see cloud structure from sunrise on the left to sunset on the right,” said Jay Herman, EPIC instrument lead investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “It’s the only view we have like this where everything is at the exact same instant in time, even though the local times are different.”

EPIC takes measurements in visible, ultraviolet and near-infrared wavelengths. With the ultraviolet channels, Herman can watch as dust from the Sahara travels westward across the Atlantic. While other low-Earth orbit satellite instruments can pick this up as they orbit at a fixed local time, EPIC provides a day-long view of the process.

“We can see the progression in real time, as it flows across the Atlantic,” Herman said.

Researchers also can determine the height and location of daytime clouds by comparing EPIC images at two different wavelengths. This measurement is important in calculating Earth’s energy balance for climate studies, as well as for tracking weather. For example, hurricanes show up as a high spiral of clouds surrounding a clearly visible eye.

“Because of the unique location and field of view, every day brings something new and unexpected,” said Alexander Marshak, DSCOVR deputy project scientist at Goddard.

One example Marshak points out is that, even a million miles away, EPIC can see the tracks of ships crossing the ocean. Some of the first images from EPIC show the clouds that result from the ships’ smoke plumes.

Researchers also are analyzing EPIC data to better understand vegetation, aerosols, ozone and other features of Earth and its atmosphere.

DSCOVR was launched on Feb. 11 and, after a four-month journey, reached its orbit around the first Lagrange point, where the matching pull of gravity from the sun and Earth allows the satellite to stay relatively stable between the two bodies. The satellite, a joint mission between NOAA, NASA and the U.S. Air Force, also carries instruments facing the sun that will the study solar wind and its magnetic field.

A second NASA Earth-facing instrument on DSCOVR, the National Institute of Standards and Technology Advanced Radiometer (NISTAR), measures the total amount of solar energy that reflects off Earth, as well as the heat emitted from our planet, according to Steven Lorentz, NISTAR instrument lead investigator and president of L-1 Standards and Technology, Inc. Because of this, the instrument fills in a missing piece of energy information not observed by other satellites.

Even with less than a year’s worth of data, the energy reflected off Earth is showing patterns, he said. The instrument picks up fluctuations, with more light reflected from continents and clouds than from oceans.

“Whenever Africa is in view, we get the highest photoreflectance,” Lorentz said. “And, even though it’s the same planet spinning, the amount of cloudiness varies planet-wide every day.”

Earth’s reflectiveness varies throughout the year, as well. As Antarctica tilts towards the sun in November, NISTAR’s signal edges up as the massive ice sheet changes the planet’s energy budget. It’s a measurement that, over time, could help scientists studying how the reflectance of the sun’s energy back into space can impact Earth’s changing climate.