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UP: Umweltphysik

UP 3: Atmosphäre

UP 3.1: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 19, 2002, 12:00–12:30, HS 11

Measuring pollution from space - the MOPITT instrument — •James Drummond — Department of Physics, University of Toronto, 60 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, CANADA, M5S 1A7

Although atmospheric measurements from space have been made for nearly 30 years, measurements in the lowest part of the atmosphere, the troposphere, have only recently become possible. The Measurements Of Pollution In The Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument was launched on NASAś Terra spacecraft in 1999 and has successfully measured carbon monoxide (CO) over the globe, giving us a completely new view of how pollution is carried around the planet. Carbon monoxide is primarily produced as a by-product of any incomplete burning.

MOPITT flies over most parts of the globe every four days and, in cloud-free conditions, provides measurements with a pixel resolution of 22km x 22km. It is clear, even from the first analysis of the data, that very large-scale transport is common and that source regions can have influences many thousands of kilometres away. In this talk I will present a brief overview of the techniques and technology that has permitted these measurements to be made, and present some of the most significant results from the experiment so far.