We have reached a point where scientists can easily measure the amount of greenhouse gases or other air pollutants simply by measuring their concentrations in the atmosphere. However, with these measurements alone, it is not necessarily obvious Where where the pollution actually comes from.
For example, how can we determine which parts of a city produce the most carbon dioxide? This is important information because it will help scientists figure out how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially as the Earth continues to warm due to human-caused climate change.
This summer, NASA hopes to offer a solution: flying airplanes to detect greenhouse gases.
For the past week and a half, NASA researchers and interns have flown two planes over the Mideastern United States, flying them low over airports, industrial plants and city centers to create a detailed map of air pollution. By the weekend, the researchers will take the same planes to California and begin taking the same measurements there.
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“The goal is for the data we collect to feed into policy decisions that affect air quality and climate in the region,” said Glenn Wolfe, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and principal investigator of the campaign, in a statement.
Wolfe and his colleagues used two turboprop aircraft, a B200 and a P-3 Orion. On board are instruments that take air samples and measure greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, as well as other air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde and ozone.
From June 17 to June 26, the crews of the two aircraft circled Philadelphia, Baltimore and several cities in Virginia with their instruments. They circled over power plants, garbage dumps and urban areas at altitudes of 1,000 to 1,0000 feet, lower than the altitude of most commercial flights. They also made mock landings at airports, approached runways and then intentionally missed those targets.
NASA wants to support the data from the aircraft with measurements from higher altitudes – from TEMPOan instrument mounted on the Intelsat 40e communications satellite in geostationary orbit 36,000 kilometers above the Earth’s surface. TEMPO takes hourly measurements of air pollutants in North America. The flights can supplement TEMPO’s measurements with additional data on pollutants at different altitudes near the Earth’s surface.
The East Coast portion of the project is complete, but the planes will soon begin the second phase of their summer flights. NASA has already begun moving the planes to Southern California, where teams will measure air pollution over Los Angeles, the Tulare Basin to the north and the Imperial Valley to the southeast from June 29 to July 2.
