Looking at Atmospheric Gasses from Space Analysis of Atmospheric CO CH4 and Aerosols using Satellite Remote Sensing A Summary of the Presentation given to the Remote Sensing Seminar class ASEN 6210 on April 28 2004 By Thomas Kampe of Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp By Jasper Hammond On April 28th 2004 Thomas Kampe provided us with a report on the importance of CO CH4 and Aerosols in the atmosphere and about some of the various methods we can employ to measure their quantities in the atmosphere He continued to describe some of the sensors used in this study and to show how the data can be analyzed to provide at times three dimensional gas and aerosol data Mr Kampe finalized his lecture by displaying some of his work to us and by describing future sensors and how they are going to help us come to a more complete picture of the presence creation and movement of these gases and particles throughout the atmosphere Why is CO important Carbon Monoxide or CO is a very important component of the atmosphere due to its effects on air pollution and atmospheric chemistry Aerosols while also playing an important part in the aforementioned processes are also one of the key components of atmospheric radiative forcing Radiative forcing is the balance of radiation coming in the atmosphere and radiation going out www grida no climate vital 04 htm One question that is being explored through the use of remote sensing is whether aerosols as pictured above cause warming positive radiative forcing or cooling negative radiative forcing of the atmosphere To answer this scientists must determine if the aerosols reflect incident short wave radiation or absorb it Continuous observation of atmospheric gas and temperature interactions by multiple instrument platforms may be the way to answer this question Mr Kampe continued to describe carbon monoxide s importance in the cycling of OH in the atmosphere CO has an average lifetime in the atmosphere of 1 3 months This makes it an excellent tracer substance for atmospheric gas transport studies The measurement of CO from space can also provide us details about CO sources and sinks across the globe as a monitor for global air pollution The next portion of Mr Kampe s presentation introduced the instruments that are being used to study atmospheric CO and methane and aerosols from space MODIS is a Moderate resolution Imaging Spectrometer It covers 36 bands from 0 412 to 14 3 micrometers in wavelength It was first launched on the Terra Satellite It was then launched aboard the AQUA satellite as well MODIS has multiple channels that help it to distinguish between finegrained aerosols and heavier QuickTime and a TIFF LZW decompressor are needed to see this picture dust and sea salt particles The coarse mode can pick up airborne particles such as dust and sea salt while the fine mode picks up important finegrained pollutants including manmade pollutants and smoke from the burning of biomass TOMS or as it is otherwise known as Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer This instrument can create an average daily aerosol measurement of the Earth and also as its moniker implies can be used to monitor the ozone layer The third instrument that was covered in Mr Kampe s lecture is the MOPITT sensor MOPITT stands for Measurement Of Pollution In The Troposphere It was designed to collect and retrieve detailed data on CO and CH4 in the atmosphere MOPITT was launched in QuickTime and a TIFF LZW decompressor are needed to see this picture December 1999 The satellite produced vertically layered data for CO and CH4 concentration studies for about 14 months until the Cryo Cooler part of the instrument began to malfunction This malfunction greatly reduced the satellite s capability to acquire data It now can only record total atmospheric column data for CO Another limitation of MOPITT is the fact that it only covers a small amount of land day Its swath path covers 22 km by 22 km The next instrument described to us by Mr Kampe was QuickTime and a TIFF LZW decompressor are needed to see this picture the AIRS instrument The AIRS instrument is also being flown on the AQUA platform like the MODIS instrument The AIRS instrument is also known as the Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder It has 248 spectral bands It can make highly accurate measurements of air temperature humidity clouds and surface temperature AIRS can also map silicate aerosols at a resolution of approximately 13 5 km Additionally AIRS covers about 82 of the globe per day Mr Kampe suggested that a comparison of CO and aerosols could help to distinguish between pollution being generated by automobiles and pollution being generated by burning of other materials This figure illustrates the AIRS instrument and its general operation The high spectral resolution of the AIRS instrument gives it the additional ability to retrieve information about trace gasses in the atmosphere with its sensors Through the use of these instrument platforms much can be determined about the quantity character and movement of trace gasses and aerosols through the Earth s atmosphere Learning more about intercontinental transport of aerosols and trace gasses may lead us to a greater understanding of global air pollution and how it affects the world Mr Kampe continued his lecture to explain the ways in which different processes produce different types of air pollution and in different ratios Here are a few examples taken directly from his presentation Mr Kampe then showed us how comparisons of total atmospheric column CO vs Aerosol Optical Depth measurements correlate to these different types of particulateproducing events These explanations were pretty technical for description here and are treated quite beautifully in the original PowerPoint presentation Mr Kampe ended his presentation with the discussion of new instruments that are still being developed and may prove to be the future direction of the remote sensing of aerosols and trace gasses in the atmosphere The first was SIRAS G or Spaceborne Infrared Atmospheric Sounder for Geosynchronous orbit It is a small package instrument bundle that aspires to a spectral resolution of 800 1000 a unit of which I am not very familiar with This is a diagram of the SIRAS G instrument bundle The SIRAS G is being designed as a follow up to AIRS with efficiency in mind It weighs in at a whopping 50 kg which is much smaller than most instruments which are similar to it Another instrument of the future as described by Mr Kampe