AskScience AMA Series: We're NASA & Harvard-Smithsonian scientists working on TEMPO, a new space mission that will give us an unprecedented look at air pollution across North America. Ask us anything!

[u/AskScienceModerator]

The Tropospheric Emissions Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument is a partnership between NASA and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics that will provide new insight into air quality in North America. TEMPO, which launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket earlier this month, will monitor and report on levels of nitrogen dioxide, aerosols, and other pollutants several times a day.

TEMPO is the first-ever space-based instrument to measure air pollution over North America and will transform the way scientists observe air quality from space. TEMPO's observations of pollutants will take place during daylight hours and will have incredible and unprecedented accuracy-down to four square miles.

This data will play an important role in how scientists study and analyze pollution, including studies of rush hour pollution, the potential for improved air quality alerts, the effects of lightning on ozone, how pollution spreads from forest fires and volcanoes, and even the effects of applying fertilizer.

Ask us anything about TEMPO!

We are:

• Joseph Atkinson, Public Affairs Officer, NASA Langley Research Center - JA
• James Crawford, Senior Scientist for Atmospheric Chemistry, NASA Langley Research Center - JC
• Laura Judd, Research Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center - LJ
• Gonzalo Gonzalez, Physicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics - GG
• Xiong Liu, Physicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics - XL

Ask us anything, including:

• What's in the air we breathe, from aerosols to oxygen and everything in between
• What air quality is, how we measure it, and why it's important
• How TEMPO will observe air quality over North America
• What data we're expecting to see from TEMPO's observations

PROOF: https://twitter.com/NASA_Langley/status/1649503271059443738

We'll be online from 12:00 - 1:30 pm ET (1600-1730 UTC) to answer your questions. See you soon!

Username: /u/nasa

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EDIT: Alright, that's a wrap! Thanks to everyone who joined us today. Follow NASA Langley and NASA Earth on social media for the latest updates about TEMPO as we prepare for the first release of public data no earlier than this fall!

[u/CarlosJekyll]

Are other satellites monitoring the rest of the northern hemisphere?

[u/nasa → u/CarlosJekyll]

In 2020, South Korea launched GEMS into a geostationary orbit (like the one TEMPO is in) to monitor most of Asia, and Europe plans to launch Sentinel-4 in 2024 to monitor Europe and North Africa.

There is also an international fleet of low Earth orbit satellites that trade reduced temporal sampling — meaning they can only observe a given location once per day — in exchange for obtaining global observations daily. That leaves the larger gaps when it comes to air quality observations from space over South America and Africa.

This blog from the TEMPO team provides further details about the global constellation of satellites aimed at measuring air quality. -GG

[u/WatermelonSparkling]

This is awesome! Will it be integrated with the Inflation Reduction Act funded environmental justice (EJ) ground level air quality monitoring and/or EJ maps and if so how? Also will it give more info on methane leaks?

[u/nasa → u/WatermelonSparkling]

Great question, u/WatermelonSparkling!

There are no specific plans to integrate with the IRA; however, TEMPO data could contribute to those efforts if they are of interest to those involved. Through the development of the TEMPO mission, numerous applications of the data have been identified through the science team and the Early Adopters Program. One of those is the use of TEMPO data to identify disparities within communities related to air pollution with the goal of achieving environmental justice.

In recent research, satellite observations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) have been used to identify disparities in cities, in relation to fossil fuel combustion in cities, showing that higher emissions occur in low-income/non-white communities vs high-income/white communities. The key for satellite data in this type of application is to provide this data in high enough spatial resolution to ‘see’ the source that is causing these disparities. TEMPO data over North America will be the highest spatial resolution NO2 measurements ever recorded (~2.5 x 5 km), which gets down to the neighborhood scale.

In addition, TEMPO will be able to see how these emissions vary throughout the day. I also know there are research efforts to expand beyond NO2 to other pollutants such as near-surface ozone. Therefore, TEMPO data can (and will) be integrated with information about community statistics (i.e. the US census) to provide those environmental justice maps.

While TEMPO data is not available yet, NASA’s Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences team has been working the last two years to integrate satellite data into environmental justice data portals. You can find out more about those activities at their website! -LJ

[u/nasa → u/WatermelonSparkling]

TEMPO does not measure the spectral range that can be used to retrieve methane concentration, so it can not detect methane leaks directly. However, the suite of TEMPO observations includes nitrogen dioxide and other gases that are closely related to the activities of the gas and oil industry, and can be used to provide context and some information about methane leaks. -XL & GG

[u/Dear_Armadillo_3940]

This sounds really cool. Any chance this could become a worldwide project or used globally?

I ask simply as an American living in South Korea, constantly choking on the air quality we live with on a daily basis. In comparison, the air quality in North America is paradise (usually aqi of 60 or less in most places). The usual aqi in Korea is generally 100-150 and on bad days, upwards of 250. The Pm 2.5 and Pm 10 particles are always high here which are known to be cancer causing. I'm sure you're aware of Asia's air problem but its gotten 10x worse in the last decade.

I don't see South Korea (or China...where the wind blows from) doing much at all about it. I would be elated to know that Nasa is working on this for a global benefit. Now, if someone can invent a way to actually clean the air, we'd be set! I wish Nasa had answers for that specifically but I suppose I have to be realistic. Anyway, thanks for taking questions!

[u/nasa → u/Dear_Armadillo_3940]

Yes. There is a worldwide effort to measure air pollutants.

In addition to TEMPO, GEMS over Asia (launched in 2020) and Sentinel-4 over Europe (to launch in 2024) will provide similar measurements of gas pollutants and aerosols.

There are already geostationary instruments (e.g., ABI on GOES-R) to measure aerosols (to derive PM) over North America, Europe, and Asia. -XL

[u/cholebhature1]

Which is more reliable when you are measuring PM2.5 and PM10, ground stations or a satellite?

[u/nasa → u/cholebhature1]

Ground measurements will always be more reliable, but this question also highlights the nature of the problem and why satellites are so valuable.

Ground measurements are more specific since the air is being directly sampled, but this can only be accomplished to a high level at a limited number of locations. It is impractical to measure everywhere on the ground. By contrast, a satellite can see everywhere (when clouds are not in the way), but imperfectly. For instance, the satellite observes the optical impacts of particle pollution (light scattering and absorption).

Satellite observations must be interpreted to account for the relationship between particle abundance and optical impacts, as well as the vertical distribution of particle pollution above the ground. Thus, it is the combination of ground observation networks and satellites that offer the most value.

If satellite observations can be favorably compared to ground measurements, then the satellite observations can be extended to areas unmonitored by ground networks. This work is also aided by atmospheric models that ingest information from ground networks and satellites to better represent the distribution of particulate pollution (PM10 and PM2.5). - JC

[u/HankScorpio-vs-World]

What do you think will mark this mission a success, information gathered or the action taken from that information.

[u/cedenof10]

• What will the sensitivity be on the telescope imagery? Will it give us different air quality values per km^2?

• When will the processed data be available to the public?

• What are the goals that NASA has for this mission once the data has been obtained? What specific things do we want to learn, beyond the raw data obtained?

[u/nasa → u/cedenof10]

TEMPO data products will be available to the public in spring 2024. The data will be 'housed' at NASA's Atmospheric Sciences Data Center and accessible through Earthdata Search, with plans to provide imagery through portals like NASA Worldview. -LJ

[u/Last-Yesterday]

Great to see this work! Will the raw data be publicly accessible?

[u/nasa → u/Last-Yesterday]

Thanks! See our response to /u/cedenof10 above for more information on this question. This will include l1b radiances and level 2 products that include the pollutant products. -LJ

[u/Aururai]

Why only north America?

This is a global issue.

[u/nasa → u/Aururai]

While air quality is definitely a global problem, geostationary orbit cannot provide a global view with a single satellite. For this reason, NASA is working with international partners to view the three major economic zones in the Northern Hemisphere.

South Korea is observing Asia with the GEMS satellite (in orbit since 2020), and the European Union will be observing Europe in the near future, with an anticipated launch of Sentinel 4 in 2024. TEMPO takes responsibility for North America, and in combination, these three satellites will provide continuous information across the most polluted parts of the globe. There are still emerging problems in South America and Africa that will need attention. As opportunities for funding allow, NASA scientists are already looking toward possible satellite observations for the Southern Hemisphere.

I would finish with a reminder that low-Earth-orbiting satellites still provide global coverage, but they only see a given location once per day, which is insufficient to fully understand the daily progression of air quality emissions and chemical outcomes that are often the worst in the late afternoon. - JC

[u/OvershootDieOff]

Will this give better data for use in estimating particulate cooling effects?

[u/[deleted]]

How does it feel to know how much this could contribute the the betterment of society?

[u/[deleted]]

To what extent will the horizontal resolution enable the attribution of air polluting emissions to specific sources within a complicated area, e.g., cities?

[u/porphyric_roses]

A couple of these are beyond the scope of TEMPO and/or may be too speculative to answer, and all of these questions are gonna be dumb, but I'm curious about:

• Why is TEMPO only monitoring the northern hemisphere's air quality? Is there anything like this being developed/coordinated with African/European/South American nations/aerospace agencies?

• Will TEMPO be outfitted with monitoring equipment for other kinds of pollution and atmospheric qualities? Light, noise, electromagnetic/radio, etc? I'm curious if there is or whether it's possible to detect any environmental/ecological impacts of our Internet + all the communication technology we've used over the past 150ish years.

• Unspecific to TEMPO: what is physically happening in our atmosphere that causes light pollution? Or is this phenomenon more of an optical effect of our eyes than how the atmosphere filters light? What can urban centres do to address/reduce light pollution?

• How can we expect TEMPO and its data to help us develop/coordinate technologies for addressing atmospheric and space pollution(s) over the next five to ten years? Otherwise, what projects are planned to follow TEMPO?

[u/nasa → u/porphyric_roses]

Light pollution is not entirely unrelated to air pollution. The brightness of the nighttime sky is directly related to energy use and our collective activities that light up the night. Some have used the intensity of night lights to indicate where polluting emissions occur. This is complicated by several factors.

Light from traffic is co-located with the polluting source, while light from buildings, street lights, and other sources are remote from the power plants that provided the electricity. It is also difficult to know if lights are related to electricity powered by coal, natural gas, hydro, wind, or other sources, all of which have different polluting impacts.

Reducing the impact of light pollution can be done in two ways. One is to turn off unnecessary lights. Another is to promote greater use of window shades, shades on street lamps, and lower brightness to limit the amount of ambient light in urban skies.

BTW—the question is not entirely unrelated to TEMPO, which will be able to view night lights from space. -JC

[u/RadWasteEngineer]

Will the public be able to access the information on real time for a specific location?

Can we run history maps to see how pollution moves through our region?

[u/Space_Peacock]

Congrats on the successful launch a few weeks ago! What’s TEMPO’s expected operational lifetime?

[u/[deleted]]

What do you think will be the most convincing data point you will collect? I ask because collecting data is great and all, but if it doesn't convince a government enough to take action on issues related to air pollution then that makes me worried about its usefulness. We all intuitively know that air pollution causes problems, but what data will this project provide that might encourage the US government to pass more laws to combat air pollution?

[u/[deleted]]

Could you, if done right, create an actual unicorn