Air Quality Observations from the A-Train: A Synergistic View
Abstract
The suite of instruments onboard NASA's A-Train satellite constellation offer unparalleled capabilities for remote sensing of air quality throughout the troposphere. Combining both active and passive remote sensing, these instruments probe atmospheric aerosols, clouds and trace gases across the spectrum from the ultraviolet to the microwave. Onboard the Aura Aqua satellite leading the A-Train, the Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder (AIRS) and Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) see 70% of the Earth both day and night and provide detailed vertical retrievals of temperature and water vapor, weighted free tropospheric concentrations of total column retrievals of CO, upper tropospheric CH4, CO2, and O3, and new research retrievals of SO2. AIRS'These broad horizontal views are complemented by more detailed vertical profiles of CO and O3 afforded by the Tropospheric Emission Sounder (TES) onboard the Aura satellite bringing up the end of the A-Train just 15 minutes behind Aqua in the same orbit. During the daytime, the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) also onboard Aura provides retrievals of totalropospheric column SO2, NO2, HCHO, and total column O3, and information on the abundance and absorption of aerosols in the free troposphere. Total column aerosol information is retrieved from observations of the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard Aqua. Additional information on the vertical distribution and shape of aerosols comes from the CALIOPO lidar onboard the Calipso satellite in the middle of the A-Train. We will present several integrated analyses using these diverse measurements to elucidate air quality issues, e.g. observations of Mexico City during the MILAGRO experiment, the continental United States during the TexAQS II experiment, large scale emissions from China, and interannual variations in biomass burning emissions from Indonesia.
- Publication:
-
AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AGUSM.U21A..04M
- Keywords:
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- 0322 Constituent sources and sinks;
- 0345 Pollution: urban and regional (0305;
- 0478;
- 4251);
- 0365 Troposphere: composition and chemistry;
- 0368 Troposphere: constituent transport and chemistry;
- 3360 Remote sensing