ESA : ESA Euronews : Atmospheric pollution .- ESA Euronews: Contaminación atmosférica

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• Title ESA Euronews : Atmospheric pollution
• Released: 17/03/2017
• Length 00:08:30
• Language English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Hungarian
• Footage Type Animation
• Copyright ESA/Euronews
• Description
  This special edition of Space explores how atmospheric pollution is measured – and forecast – by satellites.
  You have probably used an app on your mobile phone to get the weather forecast. Now, thanks to a satellite network and ground-based stations, it is possible to get through an app on your phone information about pollution in your cities.
  Earth's atmosphere is a complicated system, influenced by a large number of factors. Observation satellites orbiting around our planet constantly monitor the state of the air we breathe and how natural and man-made pollution are affecting the quality of the atmosphere.
  Researchers at the University of Bremen have pioneered the measurement of atmospheric pollution. a vuelo

TAGS

• Click on the tags to find the matching videos.
• Activity Observing the Earth
• Mission Sentinels
• System Copernicus
• Keywords Air, Air pollution, Atmosphere, Atmosphere (Earth), Climate, Climate Change, Earth observation , Pollution

ESA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

NASA : NASA Partners on Air Quality Study in East Asia.- NASA, con Korea estudiarán la calidad del aire en Asia, desde el Espacio....

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., La NASA y la República de Corea están desarrollando planes para un estudio de campo cooperativo de la calidad del aire en mayo y junio para avanzar en la capacidad de controlar la contaminación del aire con precisión desde el espacio.

More information.....
http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-partners-on-air-quality-study-in-east-asia

A new field study this May and June seeks to advance NASA’s ability to monitor air quality from space. This 2007 NASA satellite image shows a swath of air pollution sweeping east across the Korean peninsula to Japan.

Credits: NASA

Two NASA research aircraft, the UC-12B (top) and the DC-8, will gather atmospheric data across urban, rural and coastal areas of South Korea to help improve the ability to monitor air pollution from space.

Credits: NASA

 

NASA and the Republic of Korea are developing plans for a cooperative field study of air quality in May and June to advance the ability to monitor air pollution accurately from space.

The Korea U.S.-Air Quality study (KORUS-AQ) will assess air quality across urban, rural and coastal areas of South Korea using the combined observations of aircraft, ground sites, ships and satellites. Findings will play a critical role in the development of observing systems of ground and space-based sensors and computer models to provide improved air quality assessments for decision makers.

“KORUS-AQ is a step forward in an international effort to develop a global air quality observing system,” said James Crawford, a lead U.S. scientist on the project from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. “Both of our countries will be launching geostationary satellites that will join other satellites in a system that includes surface networks, air quality models, and targeted airborne sampling.”

Air quality is a significant environmental concern in the United States and around the world. Scientists are trying to untangle the different contributors to air quality, including local emissions from human activities, pollution from far away, and natural sources such as seasonal fires and wind-blown dust.

South Korea’s capital, Seoul, is one of the globe’s five most-populated metropolitan areas. Because of the country’s varied topography and its location close to both rapidly industrializing mainland China and the ocean, the impacts associated with the many factors controlling air quality are larger and often easier to measure over the Korean peninsula than elsewhere. 

“Working with our South Korean colleagues on KORUS-AQ, we will improve our understanding of the detailed factors controlling air quality, how the processes interact, and how they are changing over time,” Crawford said.

In accordance with an agreement NASA recently completed with South Korea’s National Institute of Environmental Research, Korean scientists will collect KORUS-AQ observations on the ground and in the air with a King Air aircraft from Hanseo University in Seosan. To take data during the experiment, NASA will contribute a DC-8 flying laboratory from the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, and a Beechcraft UC-12B King Air from Langley.

Five South Korean instruments will be part of the DC-8 payload and one NASA instrument will be onboard the Hanseo aircraft. NASA’s DC-8 will conduct eight-hour flights to make direct measurements of the atmosphere from altitudes up to 25,000 feet. The NASA King Air will fly overhead with remote-sensing instruments that simulate satellite observations. The Hanseo King Air will make direct atmospheric measurements focusing on areas less accessible to the larger DC-8. Scientists and air quality modelers from both countries will work together to plan the aircraft flights and analyze the measurements.

South Korea maintains an extensive ground-based, continuous air-quality monitoring network of more than 300 sites. Almost half of the sites are in the Seoul area and just over 80 percent are in urban areas. South Korea will host NASA instruments at some of the monitoring sites that are being enhanced for KORUS-AQ.

KORUS-AQ will benefit the development of a new a constellation of spaceborne science satellites and instruments expected to launch in the years 2018-2022 that will make air quality measurements over Asia, North America, Europe, and North Africa. South Korea’s Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer instrument will monitor long-term climate change and improve early warnings for major pollution events for the Korean peninsula and Asia-Pacific region.

NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution mission, an instrument that will fly as a hosted payload on a commercial communications satellite in geostationary orbit, will collect air pollution measurements over North America from Mexico City to Canada. ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) Sentinel-4 mission will take air quality measurements and monitor stratospheric ozone, solar radiation and climate variables over Europe and Northern Africa.

NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.

For more information about NASA Earth science research, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/earth

-end-

Steve Cole
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0918
stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov

Chris Rink
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va.
757-864-6786
chris.rink@nasa.gov

Last Updated: Feb. 25, 2016

Editor: Karen Northon

Tags:  Air, Earth, Langley Research Center,

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com  

Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

NASA : NASA Airborne Campaigns Tackle Climate Questions from Africa to Arctic

Hola amigos: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., la Agencia Espacial NASA, nos informa sobre los avances de la investigación que está haciendo alrededor de todo el mundo con su Proyecto: Contaminación de la Atmósfera y el cambio climático como consecuencia como afecta a la vida de la Tierra, esta vez el avión : NASA’s DC-8, volará sobre el África.

NASA nos dice: "NASA  hará : Cinco nuevas campañas de campo en el aire llevará a los cielos a partir de 2015 para investigar en un lago alcance cómo la contaminación del aire  el calentamiento de las aguas oceánicas, y los incendios en África afecta a nuestro clima.......

Estos estudios en varios procesos del sistema Tierra-no del todo comprendidas fueron seleccionadas de forma competitiva en el marco de proyectos de clase Venture Tierra de la NASA. Cada proyecto es financiado con un costo total de no más de $ 30 millones en cinco años. Esta financiación incluye el desarrollo inicial, campañas de campo y análisis de datos.......

Mas información la abajo en inglés:

 

The DC-8 airborne laboratory is one of several NASA aircraft that will fly in support of five new investigations into how different aspects of the interconnected Earth system influence climate change.

Image Credit: 

NASA

Five new NASA airborne field campaigns will take to the skies starting in 2015 to investigate how long-range air pollution, warming ocean waters, and fires in Africa affect our climate.

These studies into several incompletely understood Earth system processes were competitively-selected as part of NASA’s Earth Venture-class projects. Each project is funded at a total cost of no more than $30 million over five years. This funding includes initial development, field campaigns and analysis of data.

This is NASA’s second series of Earth Venture suborbital investigations -- regularly solicited, quick-turnaround projects recommended by the National Research Council in 2007. The first series of five projects was selected in 2010.

"These new investigations address a variety of key scientific questions critical to advancing our understanding of how Earth works," said Jack Kaye, associate director for research in NASA's Earth Science Division in Washington. “These innovative airborne experiments will let us probe inside processes and locations in unprecedented detail that complements what we can do with our fleet of Earth-observing satellites.”

The five selected Earth Venture investigations are:

• Atmospheric chemistry and air pollution – Steven Wofsy of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will lead the Atmospheric Tomography project to study the impact of human-produced air pollution on certain greenhouse gases. Airborne instruments will look at how atmospheric chemistry is transformed by various air pollutants and at the impact on methane and ozone which affect climate. Flights aboard NASA’s DC-8 will originate from the Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California, fly north to the western Arctic, south to the South Pacific, east to the Atlantic, north to Greenland, and return to California across central North America.
• Ecosystem changes in a warming ocean – Michael Behrenfeld of Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, will lead the North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study, which seeks to improve predictions of how ocean ecosystems would change with ocean warming. The mission will study the annual life cycle of phytoplankton and the impact small airborne particles derived from marine organisms have on climate in the North Atlantic. The large annual phytoplankton bloom in this region may influence the Earth’s energy budget. Research flights by NASA’s C-130 aircraft from Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, will be coordinated with a University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) research vessel. UNOLS, located at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography in Narragansett, Rhode Island, is an organization of 62 academic institutions and national laboratories involved in oceanographic research.
• Greenhouse gas sources – Kenneth Davis of Pennsylvania State University in University Park, will lead the Atmospheric Carbon and Transport-America project to quantify the sources of regional carbon dioxide, methane and other gases, and document how weather systems transport these gases in the atmosphere. The research goal is to improve identification and predictions of carbon dioxide and methane sources and sinks using spaceborne, airborne and ground-based data over the eastern United States. Research flights will use NASA’s C-130 from Wallops and the UC-12 from Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.
• African fires and Atlantic clouds – Jens Redemann of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, will lead the Observations of Aerosols above Clouds and their Interactions project to probe how smoke particles from massive biomass burning in Africa influences cloud cover over the Atlantic. Particles from this seasonal burning that are lofted into the mid-troposphere and transported westward over the southeast Atlantic interact with permanent stratocumulus “climate radiators,” which are critical to the regional and global climate system. NASA aircraft, including a Wallops P-3 and an Armstrong ER-2, will be used to conduct the investigation flying out of Walvis Bay, Namibia.
• Melting Greenland glaciers – Josh Willis of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, will lead the Oceans Melting Greenland mission to investigate the role of warmer saltier Atlantic subsurface waters in Greenland glacier melting. The study will help pave the way for improved estimates of future sea level rise by observing changes in glacier melting where ice contacts seawater. Measurements of the ocean bottom as well as seawater properties around Greenland will be taken from ships and the air using several aircraft including a NASA S-3 from Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and Gulfstream III from Armstrong.

Seven NASA centers, 25 educational institutions, three U.S. government agencies and two industry partners are involved in these Earth Venture projects. The five investigations were selected from 33 proposals.

Earth Venture investigations are part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program managed at Langley for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The missions in this program provide an innovative approach to address Earth science research with periodic windows of opportunity to accommodate new scientific priorities.

NASA monitors Earth's vital signs from land, sea, air and space with a fleet of satellites and ambitious airborne and surface-based observation campaigns. With this information and computer analysis tools, NASA studies Earth's interconnected systems to better see how our planet is changing. The agency shares this unique knowledge with the global community and works with institutions in the United States and around the world that contribute to understanding and protecting our home planet.

For more information about NASA's Earth science activities, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/earthrightnow

NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@Hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
Inscríbete en el Foro del blog y participa : A Vuelo De Un Quinde - El Foro!

nsf.gov - News - Scientists Undertake Extensive Field Campaign to Study U.S. Southeast Atmospheric Chemistry

Research examines chemical reactions between human-related pollution and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by vegetation such as trees.-

Southeast Atmosphere Study (SAS) tower in the Talladega National Forest in Alabama. Credit: Southeast Atmosphere Study

Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (102 KB)

Top-of-tree-canopy view of the SAS instrument tower in the Alabama forest. Credit: Southeast Atmosphere Study

Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (106 KB)

Close-up of the instrument tower being used by SAS atmospheric chemists. Credit: Southeast Atmosphere Study

Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (26 KB)

SAS scientists are conducting research aboard the NSF/NCAR C-130 aircraft. Credit: NSF/NCAR

Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (45 KB)
 
Scientists get ready to fly across the U.S. Southeast in search of air quality discoveries.
Credit: Southeast Atmosphere Study/NOAA
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (43 KB) 
 
Researchers prepare to sample air chemistry from the skies rather than the ground.
Credit: Southeast Atmosphere Study/NOAA
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (42 KB)

In the largest U.S. atmospheric chemistry field project in decades, researchers sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other organizations are working to study tiny particles and gases in the air over the southeastern United States.

The study looks at the chemical reactions between human-related pollution and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by vegetation such as trees in forests.

The project, called the Southeast Atmosphere Study, or SAS, runs through July 15, 2013. It's part of an unprecedented campaign, say the scientists, to investigate the relationship between air chemistry and climate change.

SAS is supported by NSF, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with the Electric Power Research Institute. Participants are from some 30 U.S. and international research institutions.

Atmospheric chemists have long known that human-made pollutants have the potential to interact with plant-emitted VOCs, turning them into airborne particles, or aerosols, that may then affect air quality and human health.

In the Southeast, the aerosols also affect the region's climate. The southeastern United States is one of the few places on Earth displaying an overall cooling trend over the last century.

"The Southeast Atmosphere Study will illuminate the role of the surface biosphere in producing volatile organic gases that can then form new particles, known as secondary organic aerosols (SOAs)," says Michael Morgan, NSF division director for Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences.

"The formation of SOAs has been observed over many forested regions of the world. Emission of these gases may have an important influence on our changing climate."

Some scientists believe that enhanced SOA formation may be responsible for an "aerosol cooling effect" that would explain the divergence of southeastern U.S. temperature trends from global average temperature trends over the last century.

Black aerosols produced by industry, home heating and other means absorb incoming solar radiation, increasing global temperatures, say scientists such as Ann Marie Carlton of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., lead NSF-funded SAS investigator.

However, many lighter-colored aerosols, such as those composed of sulfates or organics from vegetation typical of the Southeast, have a cooling effect because they reflect some amount of incoming light back to space, says Alex Guenther of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., also a scientist on the project.

Some of these aerosols get carried high into the atmosphere, affecting temperatures over a large area. But many linger in the region where they were emitted, resulting in more localized effects.

High concentrations of light-colored aerosols such as those expected in the Southeast can reduce the average temperature in the region, offsetting the warming caused by greenhouse gases circulating around the globe.

But those same aerosols can trigger chemical reactions that worsen air pollution such as ground-level ozone.

Certain types of aerosols affect cloud formation and cloud opacity; both can affect the amount of energy trapped in Earth's atmosphere.

Computer simulations can replicate some of the influences of aerosols. But they can't yet produce the level of detail required for a complete understanding of these complex chemical and atmospheric dynamics, which would lead to more accurate predictions of future air quality and regional climate.

To address these questions and improve observations that may be used to expand the capabilities of climate and chemistry models, SAS investigators are bringing a suite of air sampling equipment and sensors to the Southeast.

Project scientists are using two aircraft, the NSF/NCAR C-130 and the NOAA P-3, to sample air chemistry from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean, and from the Ohio River Valley to the Gulf of Mexico.

Researchers are also using ground instruments to measure low-level winds, moisture, temperature and chemistry.

Instrumented towers reaching some 150 feet high are taking measurements within and above forest canopies.

Additional aircraft and ground sensors deployed by companion programs will help paint an accurate atmospheric chemistry picture of this unique region.

NSF Southeast Atmosphere Study (SAS) Principal Investigators

Ann Marie Carlton, Rutgers University, New Brunswick:
Collaborative Research: Atmospheric mixed phase chemistry for improved climate predictions: field measurements and modeling of the Southern Oxidant and Aerosol Study

William Brune, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park:
Resolving issues of OH measurements and oxidation chemistry in forest environments

Rodney Weber, Georgia Tech Research Corporation:
Collaborative Research: Atmospheric mixed phase chemistry for improved climate predictions: field measurements and modeling of the Southern Oxidant and Aerosol Study

Donald Collins, Texas A&M University Main Campus:
Collaborative Research: Sensitivity of gas and aqueous phase production of secondary organic aerosol to chemical and environmental perturbations

Robert Griffin, William Marsh Rice University:
Collaborative Research: Sensitivity of gas and aqueous phase production of secondary organic aerosol to chemical and environmental perturbations

Delphine Farmer, Colorado State University:
Organic acid concentrations and fluxes over a Southeastern forest during the Southern Oxidant and Aerosol Study

Allen Goldstein, University of California-Berkeley:
Contribution of Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds to Organic Aerosol Formation in the Presence and Absence of Anthropogenic Pollution

Jose Jimenez, University of Colorado at Boulder:
Collaborative Research: Investigation of the Effects of Anthropogenic-Biogenic Interactions on Secondary Organic Aerosol Formation

Douglas Worsnop, Aerodyne Research, Inc.:
Collaborative Research: Investigation of the Effects of Anthropogenic-Biogenic Interactions on Secondary Organic Aerosol Formation

Frank Keutsch, University of Wisconsin-Madison:
Field and laboratory study of rural VOC oxidation and SOA formation utilizing measurements of formaldehyde and glyoxal

Jesse Kroll, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
Measurement of Low-Volatility Gas-Phase Organic Compounds during the Southern Oxidant and Aerosol Study

Shan-Hu Lee, Kent State University:
Measurements of Amines During the SOAS (SAS) Field Campaign

Paul Wennberg, California Institute of Technology:
Hydroperoxide, Nitrate, and Epoxide Chemistry of Biogenically produced Alkenes

Xianliang Zhou, Health Research Inc/New York State Health Department:
Collaborative Research: Photolysis of Particulate Nitrate as a Daytime HONO Source and a Re-NOx-ification Pathway in the Troposphere

Jochen Stutz, University of California-Los Angeles:
Collaborative Research: Photolysis of Particulate Nitrate as a Daytime HONO Source and a Re-NOx-ification Pathway in the Troposphere

Daniel Jaffe, University of Washington:
Collaborative Research: The North American Airborne Mercury Experiment

Noelle Selin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
Collaborative Research: The North American Airborne Mercury Experiment

Christopher Cantrell, University of Colorado at Boulder:
Collaborative Research: The North American Airborne Mercury Experiment

-NSF-

Media Contacts Cheryl Dybas, NSF (703) 292-7734

 cdybas@nsf.gov
David Hosansky, NCAR (303) 497-8611

 hosansky@ucar.edu

Related WebsitesSoutheast Atmosphere Study: 

http://www.eol.ucar.edu/projects/sas/

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2012, its budget was $7.0 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and other institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 50,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes about 11,500 new funding awards. NSF also awards about $593 million in professional and service contracts yearly.

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The National Science Foundation (NSF).-

 Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com

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NASA - NASA Announces Major Airborne Pollution/Climate Study June 6

WASHINGTON -- NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT, Thursday, June 6, to announce a new airborne science campaign over the southern United States. The campaign will investigate how air pollution and natural emissions affect climate and the atmosphere.

The Studies of Emissions, Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys campaign, or SEAC4RS, is NASA's most complex airborne mission of the year. The mission targets summertime emissions from intense forest fires in the U.S. West and natural emissions from forests in the Southeast. Flights begin in August from Houston's Ellington Field and continue through September.

The panelists for the teleconference are:
-- Brian Toon, SEAC4RS principal investigator, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder
-- Hal Maring, radiation sciences program manager, Earth Science Division, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington

To dial-in to the teleconference, reporters must contact Steve Cole at 202-358-0918 or stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov with their media affiliation by 11 a.m., June 6. Questions also can be submitted via Twitter during the briefing by using the hashtag #askNASA.

To listen to the briefing live on NASA's website, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

For more information on the mission, visit:

http://espo.nasa.gov/missions/seac4rs

 

SEAC4RS

Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys

(SEAC⁴RS) 

1. To determine how pollutant emissions are redistributed via deep convection throughout

the troposphere.

2. To determine the evolution of gases and aerosols in deep convective outflow and the

implications for UT/LS chemistry.

3. To identify the influences and feedbacks of aerosol particles from anthropogenic

pollution and biomass burning on meteorology and climate through changes in the

atmospheric heat budget (i.e., semi-direct effect) or through microphysical changes in

clouds (i.e., indirect effects).

4. To serve as a calibration/validation test bed for future satellite instruments and

missions.

Attention will also be given to the influence of biomass burning and pollution, their temporal evolution, and ultimately impacts on meteorological processes which in turn feed back into regional air quality. With respect to meteorological feedbacks, the opportunity to examine the impact of polluting aerosols on cloud properties and ultimately dynamics will be of particular interest.
 To accomplish the goals of SEAC4RS, two aircraft are required. The NASA DC-8 will provide observations from near the surface to 12 km, and the NASA ER-2 will provide high altitude observations reaching into the lower stratosphere as well as important remote sensing observations connecting satellites with observations from lower flying aircraft and surface sites.

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NASA

Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui

ayabaca@gmail.com

ayabaca@hotmail.com

ayabaca@yahoo.com

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The Earth : Carbon Monoxide

Hi My Friends: A VUELO DE UN QUINDE EL BLOG., In the United States, Europe, and eastern China, on the other hand, the highest carbon monoxide concentrations occur around urban areas as a result of vehicle and industrial emissions. Fires burning over large areas in North America and Russia in some years can be an important source. The MOPITT observations often show that pollution emitted on one continent can travel across oceans to have a big impact on air quality on other continents.

 Global Maps

Carbon Monoxide

May 2012 March 2000

Download a Quicktime animation of this dataset (6 MB)

Colorless, odorless, and poisonous, carbon monoxide is one of the six major air pollutants regulated in the United States and in many other nations around the world. When carbon-based fuels, such as coal, wood, and oil, burn incompletely or inefficiently, they produce carbon monoxide. The gas is spread by winds and circulation patterns throughout the lower atmosphere (called the troposphere).

These maps show monthly averages of global concentrations of tropospheric carbon monoxide at an altitude of about 12,000 feet. The data were collected by the MOPITT (Measurements Of Pollution In The Troposphere) sensor on NASA’s Terra satellite. Concentrations of carbon monoxide are expressed in parts per billion by volume (ppbv). A concentration of 1 ppbv means that for every billion molecules of gas in the measured volume, one of them is a carbon monoxide molecule. Yellow areas have little or no carbon monoxide, while progressively higher concentrations are shown in orange and red. Places where the sensor didn’t collect data, perhaps due to clouds, are gray.

In different parts of the world and in different seasons, the amounts and sources of atmospheric carbon monoxide change. In Africa, for example, the seasonal shifts in carbon monoxide are tied to the widespread agricultural burning that shifts north and south of the equator with the seasons. Fires are an important source of carbon monoxide pollution in other regions of the Southern Hemisphere, such as the Amazon and Southeast Asia.

In the United States, Europe, and eastern China, on the other hand, the highest carbon monoxide concentrations occur around urban areas as a result of vehicle and industrial emissions. Fires burning over large areas in North America and Russia in some years can be an important source. The MOPITT observations often show that pollution emitted on one continent can travel across oceans to have a big impact on air quality on other continents.

Carbon monoxide is a trace gas in the atmosphere, and it does not have a direct effect on the global temperature, like methane and carbon dioxide do. However, carbon monoxide plays a major role in atmospheric chemistry, and it affects the ability of the atmosphere to cleanse itself of many other polluting gases. In combination with other pollutants and sunshine, it also takes part in the formation of lower-atmospheric (“bad”) ozone and urban smog.

View, download, or analyze more of these data from NASA Earth Observations (NEO):

Carbon Monoxide

NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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ayabaca@gmail.com
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