Earthsky Interviews
Private: Tracking pollution from Earth’s orbit
November 3, 2007 - Human World
Photo: USGS: Earthshots
Excerpt: NASA Earth Observatory
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency already measures pollution with a ground-based network. Yang Liu is a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health -part of a team using “remote sensing”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_sensing instruments aboard Earth-orbiting satellites to track the tiniest and worst pollution particles, from above.
Yang Liu: _Particles smaller than two point 5 micrometers in size. Human hair is about a hundred micrometers._
Ralph Kahn at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory also participated in this study. He said the fine particles of pollution are known collectively as aerosols.
Ralph Kahn: _We can actually map out the amount of aerosol and even say something about the type of aerosol…So taken together these instruments provide detail as well as coverage._
Dr. Liu said he’s seen the satellite pictures and, when a pollution episode occurs, it’s not pretty.
Yang Liu: _From color images you see pollution as bluish pale haze. It’s alarming to see that kind of haze hanging there for a while. … You don’t want to go outside probably._
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These scientists used satellite-borne instruments known as MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) and MISR (Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer). Both MISR and MODIS are aerosol remote sensing instruments aboard NASA’s Terra satellite.
“MODIS”:http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/
“MISR”:http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov/
“Terra”:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/terra/index.html
*Our thanks to:*
Dr. Yang Liu
Harvard University Research Fellow
“Dr. Ralph Kahn”:http://www-misr.jpl.nasa.gov
Senior Research Scientist
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Also
The Aerosol Scientist for MISR
AND
Advisory Panel member for Earth and Sky Radio!!!