Feature
Aura: Sheds New Light on Air Quality and the Ozone Hole
12.14.04
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Scientist Bios & Print Resolution Images
Introduction: Phil Decola / Aura Program Scientist, Washington, NASA Headquarters
Slide 1: Aura: A Mission to Understand and Protect the Air we Breathe
Slide 2: Aura Launch
NASA's Aura satellite launched July, 15, 2004 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif
Orbit: Polar: 705 km, sun-synchronous, 98' inclination, ascending 1:45 PM +/- 15 min. equator crossing time.
Launch Vehicle: Delta 7920
Aura follows Aqua in the same orbit by 15 minutes.
Expected six-year spacecraft life
Four instruments: MLS, TES, OMI, HIRDLS
Slide 3: Why is intercontinental transport of pollutants important?
Slide 4: Aura Sessions at AGU
Tuesday Afternoon - Talks
(A23F, A24B) Rm MCC 3018
Wednesday Afternoon - posters (A33A)
Mark Schoeberl/Aura Project Scientist, NASA
Slide 5: Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI)
Slide 6: First Results from OMI: Tropospheric Ozone
Tropical tropospheric column ozone using cloud slicing method.
The U.S Environmental Protection Agency has six so-called "criteria pollutants." Aura makes daily global measurements of all of them but lead. Pollutants include nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, and particulate matter. Aura's new measurements will improve air quality forecasts. This sequence shows Aura's measurements of lower tropospheric ozone.
Slide 7: Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES)
Slide 8: First Results from TES
Aura's Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) makes the first direct satellite measurements of ozone in the troposphere, Earth's lower atmosphere. Of the six EPA criteria pollutants, ozone is the most difficult to measure. The complexity of ozone chemistry makes it difficult to quantify the amounts that industry and cars contribute to poor local air quality. Also uncertain is the amount of stratospheric ozone that mixes into the troposphere.
Slide 9: More Results from OMI: Troposphere
Slide 10: More Results from OMI: Nitrogen Dioxide
Slide 11: First Results from OMI: Antarctic Ozone Hole
Aura's 2004 Ozone Hole Movie (3.0 MB)
Aura provides scientists a new and improved look at the ozone layer, the atmospheric zone that blocks out harmful ultraviolet radiation. Aura's Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) gathered four times more data about the 2004 ozone hole than its predecessor the Earth Probe Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (EP-TOMS).
Slide 12: The Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS)
Slide 13: First Results from MLS
MLS 5 Globes Movie (5.0 MB)
Aura's global measurements of chlorine monoxide, nitric acid, water vapor and many other chemicals reveal the dramatic processes that form the Antarctic ozone hole. These new measurements improve scientists' capability of predicting ozone changes and help them monitor the overall health of the Earth's Atmosphere. Aura's Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) provided the data for these images. The white line represents the polar vortex. The polar vortex is a circumpolar wind circulation which isolates the Antarctic continent during the cold Southern Hemisphere winter, heightening ozone depletion
Slide 14: High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS)
Slide 15: HIRDLS Status
Slide 16: Aura Summary
EOS Aura is already showing us the chemistry of the troposphere and stratosphere as we have never seen it before.
MLS, OMI, and TES are working as expected. MLS will be delivering data to the public archives in late January 2005, OMI and TES data will follow.
Validation activities have begun
Validation flights from Houston (AVE) took place in November
A polar validation campaign will begin in late January
We hope to begin operations of HIRDLS very soon.
Aura special session this afternoon.
For more information see www.NASA.gov/aura
Slide 17: The “A-Train”
