New research sponsored by NASA may soon help scientists do a better jobof tracking pollution plumes around the world and help provide peoplemore advance warning of unhealthy air.
Researchers have discovered that smoke and smog move in different waysthrough the atmosphere. A series of unusual events several years agocreated a blanket of pollution over the Indian Ocean.
In the second half of 1997, smoke from Indonesian fires remainedstagnant over Southeast Asia while smog, which is tropospheric,low-level ozone, spread more rapidly across the Indian Ocean towardIndia.
Researchers tracked the pollution using data from NASA's Earth ProbeTotal Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) satellite instrument. "TOMS isthe only satellite instrument that follows both smoke and smog,globally," said Anne Thompson, NASA Earth Scientist at Goddard SpaceFlight Center, Greenbelt, MD. "The extreme pollution generated duringthe Indonesian fires was the first time we saw smoke move more slowlyand in different directions from where smog moved."
The above image shows the pollution over Indonesia and theIndian Ocean on October 22, 1997. White represents the aerosols (smoke)that remained in the vicinity of the fires. Green, yellow, and red pixels representincreasing amounts of tropospheric ozone (smog) being carried to thewest by high-altitude winds.
For more information, images, and animations, read theon-linenews release, and visit the TOMS home page and the tropical tropospheric ozone page.
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Image courtesy NASA GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio, based on data from TOMS.
