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Air Quality Data Access and Tools
NASA has air quality datasets that help researchers characterize the particular makeup of the air we breathe. Access a range of data and data tools such as AppEEARS, FIRMS, and Giovanni to make the most of air quality data.
Air quality comprises a constellation of scientific topics that inform our understanding of this field. Learn more about data and resources focused on aerosol optical depth, aerosol index, trace gases, land surface reflectance, the effect of dust, ash, and smoke, and human dimensions, including natural hazards.
Many NASA observation methods—platforms, instruments, and space geodesy techniques—provide data that improve our understanding of air quality, including NASA's Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring Pollution (TEMPO) instrument, featured below. Learn more about how the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER), Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) continually acquire data about pollutants.
Air Quality Data Tools
| Tool Sort descending | Description | Services | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AppEEARS | The The Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples (AppEEARS) offers users a simple and efficient way to perform data access and transformation processes. | Search and Discovery, Subsetting, Customization, Downloading, Visualization | |
| CASEI | The Catalog of Archived Suborbital Earth Science Investigations (CASEI) is a comprehensive inventory of contextual information for NASA's Earth Science airborne and field campaigns. | Search and Discovery, Cataloging | |
| FIRMS | The Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) provides access to satellite imagery, active fire/hotspots, and related products to identify the location, extent, and intensity of wildfire activity. | Access, Visualization | |
| Panoply | Panoply is a cross-platform application that plots geo-referenced and other arrays from netCDF, HDF, GRIB, and other datasets. | Visualization, Customization, Reformatting, Subsetting, Comparison | |
| VEDA | NASA's Visualization, Exploration, and Data Analysis (VEDA) project is an open-source science cyberinfrastructure for data processing, visualization, exploration, and geographic information systems (GIS) capabilities. | Access, Analysis, Processing, Visualization, Geoprocessing | |
| Worldview | Worldview offers the capability to interactively browse over 1,200 global, full-resolution satellite imagery layers and download the underlying data. | Analysis, Search and Discovery, Visualization, Access, Comparison, Monitoring Natural Events |
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Featured Air Quality Observation Method: TEMPO
NASA's Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring Pollution (TEMPO) instrument provides hourly measurements of O3, NO2, and other key elements of air pollution.
These new Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) products will aid validation efforts and algorithm development, and will be used to expand the mission’s higher-level products.
5 MIN READ
This webinar provides an overview of the TEMPO mission and its data products and shows how to discover and access TEMPO data products using NASA's Earthdata Search.
The 14 layers from the Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution mission offer data on clouds, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and more.
The beta release of Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) mission data products lets users begin developing applications using these data.
Air Quality Datasets
| Dataset | Platforms | Instruments | Temporal Extent | Location Keywords | Spatial Extent | Data Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATom: L2 Measurements from NOAA ToF Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometer, Version 2 | NASA DC-8 | CIT-ToF-CIMS | 2017-09-28 to 2018-05-21 | GLOBAL | N: 82.9406 S: -86.1769 E: 180 W: -180 | ICARTT |
| ATom: L2 Measurements from the Programmable Flask Package (PFP) Whole Air Sampler | NASA DC-8 | FLASKS | 2016-07-29 to 2018-05-21 | GLOBAL OCEAN | N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180 | ICARTT |
| ATom: L2 Measurements of In Situ Airborne Formaldehyde (ISAF) | NASA DC-8 | FLUORESCENCE SPECTROSCOPY | 2016-07-29 to 2018-05-07 | GLOBAL | N: 80.5222 S: -80.1179 E: 180 W: -180 | ICARTT |
| ATom: L2 Trace Gas and Isotope Measurements from Medusa Whole Air Sampler, Version 2 | NASA DC-8 | FLASKS | 2016-07-29 to 2018-05-21 | GLOBAL | N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180 | ICARTT |
| ATom: Light-Absorbing Metallic Aerosols, Single Particle Soot Photometer, 2016-2018 | NASA DC-8 | DMT SP2 | 2016-07-29 to 2018-05-21 | GLOBAL | N: 82.9404 S: -86.1768 E: 180 W: -180 | ICARTT |
| ATom: Measurements from Airborne Tropospheric Hydrogen Oxides Sensor (ATHOS), V2 | NASA DC-8 | ATHOS | 2016-07-29 to 2018-05-21 | GLOBAL | N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180 | ICARTT |
| ATom: Measurements from Particle Analysis By Laser Mass Spectrometry (PALMS) | NASA DC-8 | PALMS | 2016-07-29 to 2018-05-21 | GLOBAL | N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180 | multiple |
| ATom: Measurements from the UAS Chromatograph for Atmospheric Trace Species (UCATS) | NASA DC-8 | TUNABLE DIODE LASER, UCATS-GC | 2016-07-12 to 2018-05-21 | GLOBAL | N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180 | ICARTT |
| ATom: Measurements of Soluble Acidic Gases and Aerosols (SAGA) | NASA DC-8 | ION CHROMATOGRAPHS | 2016-07-29 to 2018-05-21 | GLOBAL | N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180 | ICARTT |
| ATom: Merged Atmospheric Chemistry, Trace Gases, and Aerosols | NASA DC-8 | PALMS, WAS, LASER SPECTROMETER, SPECTROMETERS, CIMS, PHOTOMETERS | 2016-07-29 to 2018-05-21 | GLOBAL | N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180 | netCDF-4 |
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Frequently Asked Questions
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