Saturday, September 19, 2009

Remote Sensing of Particulate Pollution: Satellite Prospective

Satellite remote sensing of particulate matter air pollution has shown tremendous potential for air quality monitoring over global regions with advancement in research and application over very short period of less than a decade. Recently, Air & Waste Management Association (AWMA) conducted a critical review of research on particle air quality monitoring from satellite observations. Critical review is conducted by experts in the field Ray Hoff from UMBC and Sundar A. Christopher from UAHuntsville.

The Abstract reads as


The recent literature on satellite remote sensing of air quality is reviewed. 2009 is the 50th anniversary of the first satellite atmospheric observations. For the first 40 of those years, atmospheric composition measurements, meteorology, and atmospheric structure and dynamics dominated the missions launched. Since 1995, 42 instruments relevant to air quality measurements have been put into orbit. Trace gases such as ozone, nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, water, oxygen/tetraoxygen, bromine oxide, sulfur dioxide, formaldehyde, glyoxal, chlorine dioxide, chlorine monoxide, and nitrate radical have been measured in the stratosphere and troposphere in column measurements. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) is a focus of this review and a significant body of literature exists that shows that ground-level fine particulate matter (PM2.5) can be estimated from columnar AOD. Precision of the measurement of AOD is _20% and the prediction of PM2.5 from AOD is order _30% in the most careful studies. The air quality needs that can use such predictions are examined. Satellite measurements are important to event detection, transport and model prediction, and emission estimation. It is suggested that ground-based measurements, models, and satellite measurements should be viewed as a system, each component of which is necessary to better understand air quality.

Complete Reference

Hoff, R., S.A. Christopher, Remote Sensing of Particualte Matter Air Pollution from Space : Have we reached the promised land, J. Air&Waste Manage. Assoc., 59:642-675, 2009.

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