DISCOVER-AQ data showing smoke over the Chesapeake Bay from wildfires in North Carolina and Georgia in July 2011.
Image Credit: NASA
Know Your Earth 3.0: Discover AQ
April 2, 2013
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About Jennifer Olson
Jennifer Olson works at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., and recently helped launch DISCOVER-AQ (Deriving Information on Surface conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality). DISCOVER-AQ is an airborne field campaign to study pollution where people live and breathe. Olson works with scientists from an array of U.S. and international universities and research centers, focusing on gases, particles called aerosols and solar radiation fields in the atmosphere.
When Olson was a child, two of her favorite things were the marching band at Santa Fe High School, in Santa Fe, Texas and watching the weather. Today, Olson doesn't get a chance to play the clarinet as often as she'd like. She is, however, still studying the sky and it is no longer from a homemade weather station in her backyard. Olson received her bachelor's degree from Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas and went on to get her master's from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. She started working at NASA through a continuing education program, and went back to Georgia Tech to get her doctorate. While there, she did research with scientists at Princeton University, using their global chemical transport model to study ozone production due to tropical biomass burning in South America. She eventually started researching tropospheric ozone for NASA, which ties into her current work on data analysis and modeling for airborne field campaigns like DISCOVER-AQ.
During DISCOVER-AQ, scientists fly planes that have been outfitted with instruments that measure gases, aerosols and solar radiation in the atmosphere. That information is sent back to Langley, where Olson and her colleagues analyze and diagnose what chemical interactions are taking place in the atmosphere and how data from satellites can be used to understand pollution. The research team has flown over the Washington, D.C., area and the San Joaquin Valley in California to measure pollution. The Houston area is the next location on NASA's DISCOVER-AQ schedule for September 2013, so Olson's hometown friends shouldn't be surprised if they see low-flying planes in Santa Fe, too.
About Discover-AQ
DISCOVER-AQ data showing smoke over the Chesapeake Bay from wildfires in North Carolina and Georgia in July 2011.
Image Credit: NASA
DISCOVER-AQ is a five-year field campaign to improve the use of
satellites to monitor air quality for public health and environmental
benefit. Near-surface pollution is one of the most challenging problems
for Earth observations from space. Through targeted airborne and
ground-based observations, DISCOVER-AQ will enable more effective use of
current and future satellites to diagnose ground level conditions
influencing air quality.
The UC-12 aircraft flies over the Chesapeake Bay at sunrise as part of the DISCOVER-AQ mission.
Image Credit: NASA
The UC-12 aircraft flies over the Chesapeake Bay at sunrise as part of the DISCOVER-AQ mission.
Funded by the NASA Earth Venture program, the DISCOVER-AQ mission
employs two NASA aircraft to make a series of flights with scientific
instruments aboard to measure gaseous and particulate pollution. The
measurements are taken in concert with ground observations in order to
shed light on how satellites could be used to make similar, consistent
measurements over time, with the ultimate goal of putting better data in
the hands of policy-makers and elected officials. DISCOVER-AQ flights
took place over Baltimore-Washington, D.C. in 2011 and over the San
Joaquin Valley in California in early 2013. The next mission destination
is Houston in September 2013.
DISCOVER-AQ is a collaboration between scientists at NASA's Langley
Research Center in Hampton, Va.; NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md.; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; and multiple universities and
localities.
Additional Links
› Know Your Earth 3.0› DISCOVER-AQ project website
› NASA's DISCOVER-AQ website
› DISCOVER-AQ Results
› Follow DISCOVER-AQ on Twitter through the Airborne Science Program
› DISCOVER-AQ images on Flickr
NASA Aircraft Take to Skies over Houston for Air Pollution Study
A
multi-year NASA science mission soon will be airborne over Houston to
help scientists measure and forecast air quality from space.
NASA is inviting media to see two NASA aircraft equipped with
scientific instruments at Ellington Field in Houston on Tuesday, Sept. 3
as the planes are being readied for a month-long series of flights over
the metropolitan area beginning Wednesday, Sept. 4. The date for this
media opportunity is subject to change depending on the schedule of
research flights.
To arrange for credentials, contact William Jeffs at 281-483-5111 or william.p.jeffs@nasa.gov. Non-U.S. media planning to attend must respond by Tuesday, Aug. 20. U.S. reporters must respond by Wednesday, Aug. 28.
The P-3B turboprop and two-engine B200 King Air plane are part of a
five-year study NASA calls DISCOVER-AQ, which is short for Deriving
Information on Surface conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved
Observations Relevant to Air Quality.
Researchers are working to improve the ability of satellites to
consistently observe air quality in the lowest part of the atmosphere.
If scientists can better observe pollution from space, they may be able
to make better air quality forecasts and more accurately determine where
pollution is coming from and why emissions vary.
Flights will be at altitudes as low as 1,000 feet. Sampling will
focus on the Houston metropolitan area ranging from Conroe in the north
to Galveston in the south.
DISCOVER-AQ is an Earth Venture mission, part of the Earth System
Science Pathfinder program managed at NASA's Langley Research Center in
Hampton, Va., for the Earth Science Division of NASA's Science Mission
Directorate in Washington.
For more information on DISCOVER-AQ, visit:
and
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
ayabaca@gmail.com
ayabaca@hotmail.com
ayabaca@yahoo.com
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