Air Quality Remote Sensing Program
Air Quality Monitoring

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) series provide a potentially important tool to monitor air quality due to their large spatial coverage and reliable multiple measurements per day. Some early studies from Koepke and Queszel (1979) and Fraser et al. (1984) demonstrated an ability to perform aerosol retrievals. Recently, Knapp et al (2001, 2002, 2005) showed that aerosol monitoring from GOES is possible for South America and North America. The comparison with Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) found that GOES retrievals have strong correlations with surface observations over most regions of the United States.

At present, our research has been extended to exploit GOES satellite-derived atmospheric aerosol optical depth (AOD) data to predict ground PM2.5 observations and develop prototype monitoring tools.

About PM2.5 Emissions

PM2.5 is a term used to refer to particulate matter in the atmosphere of 2.5 micrometers (µm) or smaller in size. Scientific studies have suggested that the volume of PM2.5 particles are a key measure affecting human health and the health of the environment. To monitor PM2.5 emissions since 1997, the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a monitoring network throughout the U.S. territories maintained by federal, state and local agencies. The network is composed of about 1500 sites and serves multiple information needs.

The figure below shows correlation coefficients between AOD,
derived using July 2004 GOES data and surface PM2.5 over Eastern CONUS