Recent advances in remote sensing have lead to satellite observations of air-quality. This data has the advantage of measuring atmospheric concentrations of pollutants over a wide spatial scale and can supplement air-quality monitoring data for model evaluation and human health and ecosystem assessments. EPA scientists are in collaboration with remote sensing scientist to improve satellite air-quality observations. These scientists are currently assessing satellite observations against surface measurements and air-quality modeled results to better understand the potential applications and limitations of this data.  These studies have resulted in the assessment of the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) aboard NASA’s Aura satellite NH3 observations against surface level NH3 observations, global spatial and seasonal assessments of NH3 from the TES instrument, and are currently being used to improve the emissions and model parameterizations of NH3 in regional and global models. 

Contacts: Jesse Bash, Robert Pinder

References
Galloway, J.N., Aber, J.D., Erisman, J.W., Seitzinger, S.P., Howarth, R.W., Cowling, E.B., Cosby, B.J.: 2003, The nitrogen cascade, BioScience, 54, 341-356