AIR QUALITY FROM SPACE | Air Quality

NASA’s Fleet of Earth Observing Satellites: Monitoring Our Planet’s Health

NASA has a fleet of Earth-observing satellites whose instruments observe our planet’s oceans, biosphere, and atmosphere. Several of these satellites have instruments that observe air pollutants around the world. The data collected are being used by air quality managers and researchers studying the impact of air pollution on human health and agriculture.

Air Pollutants Observed from Space

Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2): NO2 is unhealthy to breathe and is primarily generated during fossil fuel combustion, so thermal power plants and automobiles are the dominant sources.

Ozone (O3) & Precursors: At Earth’s surface, O3 is unhealthy to breathe and also negatively impacts plants, reducing crop yields.

Particulate Matter (PM) & Precursors: PM are tiny particles (e.g., smoke and dust) that cause numerous health issues when breathed in.

Impacts of Air Pollution: How Satellite Data Can Help

Human Health: Exposure to outdoor air pollution is responsible for an estimated 4 million premature deaths annually with about another 3-4 million resulting from exposure to indoor air pollution; that is, air pollution is responsible for about 1 in 9 deaths worldwide (WHO, 2018;  Cohen et al., 2017). The State of the Global Air webtool allows you to view historical trends of air pollutants for your city with the concomitant impacts on human health.

Agriculture: The economic impact of crop yield loss due to pollution is significant all over the world. Air pollution causes global crop yield losses for wheat, corn, and soybeans that are estimated to range from 11-18 billion annually, with the greatest economic loss estimated to occur in the United States ($3.1 billion).

The slider above shows satellite data of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) from the Aura Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) data for two years, 2005 (left) and 2016 (right). The data indicate that levels of this pollutant changed significantly over the last decade in many places around the world.  Slide the bar from back and forth to see these changes.  More information on NO2 trends for each region and more than 300 world cities can be found under the Nitrogen Dioxide tab.