Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

North American pollution measurements from geostationary orbit with Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO)

Monday April 10 2017 @ 12:00 pm
to 1:00 pm

April

10

Mon

2017

12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Event Type
Seminar
Availability

Open to Public

Audience
  • CIRES employees
  • CU Boulder employees
  • General Public
  • NOAA employees
  • Science collaborators
  • Host
    CIRES, CU Boulder

    Jointly sponsored by the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, CIRES, and the Environmental Program
    Dr. Kelly Chance, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
    Abstract:
    "TEMPO is the first NASA Earth Venture Instrument. It launches between 2019 and 2021 to measure atmospheric pollution from Mexico City and Cuba to the Canadian oil sands, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It does this hourly at high spatial resolution, ~10 km 2 , to measure the key elements of air pollution chemistry. Geostationary daytime measurements capture the variability in the diurnal cycle of emissions and chemistry at sub-urban scale to improve emission inventories, monitor population exposure, and enable emission-control strategies. TEMPO measures UV/visible Earth reflectance spectra to retrieve O 3 , NO 2 , SO 2 , H 2 CO, C 2 H 2 O 2 , H 2 O, BrO, OClO, IO, aerosols, cloud parameters, and UVB radiation. It tracks aerosol loading. It provides near-real- time air quality products. TEMPO is the North American component of upcoming the global geostationary constellation for pollution monitoring, together with the European Sentinel-4 and the Korean Geostationary Environmental Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS). TEMPO science studies may include: Solar-induced fluorescence from chlorophyll over land and in the ocean to study tropical dynamics, primary productivity and carbon uptake, to detect red tides, and to study phytoplankton; measurements of stratospheric intrusions that cause air quality exceedances; measurements at peaks in vehicle travel to capture the variability in emissions from mobile sources; measurements of thunderstorm activity, including outflow regions to better quantify lightning NO x and O 3 production; cropland measurements to follow the temporal evolution of emissions after fertilizer application and from rain-induced emissions from semi-arid soils; investigating the chemical processing of primary fire emissions and the secondary formation of VOCs and ozone; examining ocean halogen emissions and their impact on the oxidizing capacity of coastal environments; measuring spectra of nighttime lights as markers for human activity, energy conservation, and compliance with outdoor lighting standards intended to reduce light pollution."