NASA Is Getting Really Serious About Tracking Air Pollution

NASA is launching a satellite called Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (Tempo) to monitor North American air pollution from space. One of the key aims of the mission is to track variations in pollution, particularly in relation to environmental injustice affecting lower-income and racially segregated areas. The resultant data could also improve weather forecasting by enabling more accurate forecasting of future conditions. However, satellites only monitor from above and remote-sensing ground monitors only from the ground so gaps in knowledge persist including pollutant data at varying altitudes. To bridge this gap, NASA will partner with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Science Foundation and several other institutions to collaborate on a range of instruments with flights that will travel over urban and coastal regions to calibrate and add to the satellite data. Combining all of this data with information from EPA monitors and weather models will enable multi-perspective analysis of the atmosphere.

Tempo will be particularly focused on monitoring particles with a diameter less than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5). Although they make up less than 1% of the atmosphere, these tiny aerosols are known to harm crops, worsen visibility, and cause cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. NASA has teamed up with several major health organisations to gain a better understanding of which types of PM2.5 are most harmful. The groups plan to launch a Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) observatory next year over 11 of the world’s most populous metropolitan areas including Boston, Johannesburg and Tel Aviv. It will sample the air to determine the sizes and chemical makeup of aerosols. That data will be combined with information from ground-based monitors and compared against public health records to determine how specific mixtures and sizes of particles correlate to particular health problems.

A key benefit of this research is the potential to expose environmental injustice. With scientific knowledge of which specific types of air pollution are the most harmful and which populations are most affected, targeted action can be taken to improve air quality in the most affected areas. Furthermore, knowledge of how global weather patterns are affecting levels of pollution could incentivise countries that are damaging air quality to take steps to alter their practices. It is hoped that the findings of these studies could ultimately lead to a reduction in respiratory and cardiovascular disease, as well as a range of other medical issues linked to air pollution.



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