07.09.10

Michael Finneran
757-864-6110 (office) 757-344-4611 (cell)
michael.p.finneran@nasa.govRELEASE: 10-058

NASA LANGLEY CAMPAIGN TO IMPROVE AIR QUALITY MONITORING BY SATELLITES

A team led by a NASA Langley Research Center scientist has been 
selected to carry out a four-year campaign to improve the use of 
satellites to monitor air quality for public health and environmental 
benefit.

The team, led by Langley senior research scientist Jim Crawford, won 
$30 million in funding from NASA's Earth Venture program, designed to 
promote high-impact, quick-turnaround research campaigns.

<div align="center">Click to enlarge</div> 

NASA Langley's King Air B200. Credit: NASA/Sean Smith

"Monitoring stations on the ground still provide the primary 
information about air pollution to decision-makers," Crawford said. 
"If we can improve our ability to use satellites to measure air 
quality at the surface, we can gain valuable insight into regions we 
don't have data for now, and get critical guidance on where to put 
new ground-based air quality monitors in the future."

The campaign will employ NASA aircraft to make a series of flights, 
with scientific instruments on board to measure gaseous and 
particulate pollution, beginning in 2011.

The measurements will be taken in concert with ground observations in 
order to shed light on how satellites could be used to make similar, 
consistent measurements over time, with the ultimate goal of putting 
better data in the hands of policymakers and elected officials.

Even as cities and states have made great strides in improving air 
quality since the Clean Air Act, an increasing number of localities 
continue to fall short of federal air quality standards. Cities and 
regions that do not meet Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 
standards risk losing federal money for road construction, as many 
pollution problems are linked to excessive vehicle exhaust.

Several Virginia municipalities have struggled to meet the EPA 
standards over the years, and Hampton Roads only recently did so. 
Failure to meet standards means a region has too many days a year 
where pollution levels mix with hot, sunny conditions to create 
harmful health effects.

Standards have gotten stricter as scientists learn more about the 
harmful effects of pollution, and incremental improvements in air 
quality now required often are difficult to accomplish.

But many localities have also seen what scientists call "background" 
pollution – the norm – rise to higher levels. Scientists want to 
improve their grasp of the evolution of air pollution in order to 
better understand its environmental and health impacts and to make 
more accurate air quality forecasts.

One way to do this would be to harness the power of Earth-observing 
satellites. Right now, observing air pollution at the Earth's surface 
is one of the most difficult measurements to make from space.

With improved ability to monitor pollution from satellites, scientists 
could make better air quality forecasts, more accurately determine 
the sources of pollutants in the air and more closely determine the 
fluctuations in emissions levels. In short, the more -- and more 
accurate -- data scientists have at hand, the better society is able 
to deal effectively with lingering pollution problems.

"The knowledge gained during this campaign will be invaluable in 
leading to more effective use of current satellite observations, more 
effective design and observing strategies for future satellites, and 
improved air quality models," Crawford said.

The series of flights -- which will be made by NASA Langley's King Air 
B200 and NASA's P-3B -- will be over Baltimore-Washington, D.C. 
(2011); Houston (2012); Sacramento (2013); and a final site in 2014 
to be determined.

Led by Crawford, the campaign will draw on scientists at Langley, 
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; Ames Research Center, 
outside San Francisco; and multiple universities. The campaign is 
called DISCOVER-AQ (Deriving Information on Surface Conditions from 
Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality).

For more information about NASA Langley, visit:

<div align="center">http://www.nasa.gov/langley</div> 




<hr width="80%" align="center">





NASA Langley press releases are available automatically by sending an 
e-mail message to langley-news-request@lists.nasa.gov with the word 
subscribe in the subject line. You will receive an e-mail asking you 
to visit a link to confirm the action. To unsubscribe, send an e-mail 
message to langley-news-request@lists.nasa.gov with the word 
unsubscribe in the subject line. 

	
-end-