A spectrometer launched into orbit in the spring is collecting data on air pollution over North America.
NASA has released the first data maps from a new instrument monitoring air pollution from space. The visualizations show high levels of major pollutants like nitrogen dioxide — a reactive chemical usually produced when fossil fuels are burned for transportation, power generation and other industrial activities, as well as wildfires — in the atmosphere over parts of North America.
This image taken from the TEMPO instrument shows air pollution over Dallas, Houston and New Orleans just after 12 p.m. on Aug. 2, 2023Air pollution is being observed by a light analyzer called the Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution, or TEMPO, which was born out of a collaboration between the NASA Langley Research Center and the Smithsonnian Astrophysical Observatory.
This image shows nitrogen dioxide over New York City, Philadelphia and Washington D.C., just after 12 p.m. ET on Aug. 2, 2023.Nitrogen dioxide detected by TEMPO had to rise above the clouds in order for the spectrometer to take note of it, since the instrument uses visible sunlight to gather its data and make measurements. Cloudy areas are shown as missing data in NASA's visualizations, and TEMPO can only record air pollution during daylight hours.
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