1. Thoughts on Atmospheric Aerosols: Science, Air Quality and Informatics Rudolf B. Husar CAPITA, Washington University Seminar Presented at U. Wisconsin, Madison, WI, October 16, 2006
2. Aerosols as Indicators of Global Processes and Change Major Biogeochemical Processes/Flows Visualized by Aerosols: Volcanoes Dust storms Fires Anthropogenic pollution Radiative Climate Human Health Visibility Acid Rain…… As aerosols pass through the atmosphere, the effects include:
9. Just like the human eye, satellite sensors detect the total amount of solar radiation that is reflected from the earth’s surface ( R o ) and backscattered by the atmosphere from aerosol, pure air, and clouds. A simplified expression for the relative radiatioin detected by a satellite sensor (I/I o ) is: I / I o = R o e - + (1- e - ) P Satellite Detection of Aerosols Today, geo-synchronous and polar orbiting satellites can detect different aspects of aerosols over the globe daily. where is the aerosol optical thickness and P the angular light scattering probability.
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11. AVHRR satellite optical depth climatology over the oceans, 1988-90 Husar, Prospero, Stove, 1997 Surprise: Small Sulfate Plume, Spring, Summer Only
14. Satellite Data Increases Spatial Resolution PM25 Surface Conc. JJA SeaWiFS AOT. JJA SeaWiFS AOT. JJA, Terrain AOT in Valleys
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17. Origin of Fine Dust Events over the US Gobi dust in spring Sahara in summer Fine dust events over the US are mainly from intercontinental transport Fine Dust Events, 1992-2003 ug/m3
18. Asian Dust Cloud over N. America On April 27, the dust cloud arrived in North America. Regional average PM10 concentrations increased to 65 g/m 3 In Washington State, PM10 concentrations exceeded 100 g/m 3 Asian Dust 100 g/m 3 Hourly PM10
19. During the trans-Pacific transit the dust plume was also tracked independently by Washington University and University of Wisconsin using GMS-5 and GOES-9 geostationary satellites, respectively. GMS-5 Image of Dust over the Central Pacific on April 24 GOES-9 images of Dust over the Central Pacific on April 24
20. Supporting Evidence: Transport Analysis Satellite data (e.g. SeaWiFS) show Sahara Dust reaching Gulf of Mexico and entering the continent. The air masses arrive to Big Bend, TX form the east (July) and from the west (April)
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23. Mystery Winter Haze: Natural? Nitrate/Sulfate? Stagnation? Mystery not Solved, too Complicated, Calls for Multidisciplinary Community Analysis Contributed by the FASNET Community, Sep. 2004 Correspondence to R Husar , R Poirot Coordination Support by Inter-RPO WG Fast Aerosol Sensing Tools for Natural Event Tracking, FASTNET NSF Collaboration Support for Aerosol Event Analysis NASA REASON Coop EPA -OAQPS AIRNOW PM25 - February
27. Seasonal Nitrate, VIEWS 2000-2004 DEC FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV Eastern US Nitrate - Daily Average ‘ Nitrate Events’ JAN
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29. Kansas Agricultural Smoke, April 12, 2003 Fire Pixels PM25 Mass, FRM 65 ug/m3 max Organics 35 ug/m3 max Ag Fires SeaWiFS, Refl SeaWiFS, AOT Col AOT Blue
30. Informatics: The Researcher/Analyst’s Challenge “ The researcher cannot get access to the data; if he can, he cannot read them; if he can read them, he does not know how good they are; and if he finds them good he cannot merge them with other data.” Information Technology and the Conduct of Research: The Users View National Academy Press, 1989 These resistances can be overcome through a distributed system that catalogs and standardizes the data and provides tools for data manipulation and analysis.
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32. ‘ Natural’ Aerosols: Biomass Smoke Satellite data show numerous small fires in the Southeast The type of these fires is not known. Prescribed/agricultural burning? Wild fires? Issue: How does one space-time aggregate such a highly variable emission? PM2.5 conc., smoke pattern and SeaWiFS image of plumes originating from Kentucky, Nov 15, 1999. More details here here Nov 15, 1999 Oct 5, 1998 Oct 5, 1998 Smoke Plumes Smoke Plumes Regional Smoke?
