More than five years of CO retrievals from the Atmospheric InfraRed Sounder (AIRS) onboard NASA's Aqua satellite reveal variations in tropospheric CO on timescales from twelve hours to five years and on spatial scales from local to global. The shorter timescales are invaluable to monitor daily variations in CO emissions, to enable three-dimensional tracking of atmospheric motions, and to enhance insights into atmospheric mixing. Previous studies have utilized AIRS CO retrievals over the course of days to weeks to track plumes from large forest fires. On the local scale, we will present AIRS observations of pollution from several northern hemisphere Megacities. On the regional scale, we will present AIRS observations of the Mexico City pollution plume. We will illustrate global scale AIRS CO observations of interannual variations linked to the influence of large-scale atmospheric perturbations from the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In particular, we observe a quasi-biennial variation in CO emissions from Indonesia with varying magnitudes in peak emission occurring in 2002, 2004, and 2006. Examining satellite rainfall measurements over Indonesia, we find the enhanced CO emission correlates with occasions of less rainfall during the month of October. Continuing this satellite record of tropospheric CO with measurements from the European IASI instrument will permit construction of a long time-series useful for further investigations of climatological variations in CO emissions and their impact on the health of the atmosphere.

Date Published: 5 May 2008
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 6966, Algorithms and Technologies for Multispectral, Hyperspectral, and Ultraspectral Imagery XIV, 696615 (5 May 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.776983

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6966:
Algorithms and Technologies for Multispectral, Hyperspectral, and Ultraspectral Imagery XIV
Sylvia S. Shen; Paul E. Lewis, Editor(s)