NASA's aura satellite sheds new light on air quality and ...( NASA scientists announced the agency's ...)

For the first time, Aura will help scientists monitor global pollution production and transport with unprecedented spatial resolution. Aura's measurements offer new insights into how climate changes influence the recovery of the Earth's protective stratospheric ozone layer.

"Data from NASA missions like Aura are a valuable national asset," said Aura Program Scientist Phil DeCola of NASA Headquarters, Washington. "Clean air is a vital need, and air quality is not merely a local issue. Pollutants do not respect state or national boundaries. They can degrade air quality far from their sources. Aura's view from space enables us to understand the long-range transport of pollutants," he added.

"Aura's early results are nothing short of astounding; measurements like these will help us better understand how the ozone hole will react to future stratospheric cooling, which is expected as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise," said Aura Project Scientist Mark Schoeberl of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Aura's instruments study tropospheric chemistry and will provide daily, global monitoring of air pollution. The complexity of pollution transport makes it difficult to quantify how much industry and cars contribute to poor local air quality. Also, the presence of stratospheric ozone sandwiched between the satellite and the troposphere makes seeing tropospheric ozone very difficult. Aura's Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) uses new technology to see through the stratospheric ozone layer, to measure tropospheric ozone.

Aura also provides new insights into the physical and chemical processes that influence the health of the stratospheric ozone layer and climate. It's producing the most complete suite of chemical measurements eve
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Contact: Lynn Chandler
Lynn.chandler-1@nasa.gov
415-348-4440
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
14-Dec-2004