March 2, 2006

A typical windy day can bring along with it more than just a tangle of leaves and a warm breeze. Pollution too is often transported by the same wind currents, and often wafts in from places like Mexico and Central America and from overseas across the Pacific Ocean. NASA researchers are using complex scientific instruments aboard aircraft to learn more about the air that blows in from Mexico City and other places to North America, and what pollutants may blow in with it. Perhaps most importantly, they are seeking answers to where this long-range air pollution may be headed.

From March 1 through May 15, NASA will carry out the Intercontinental Chemical Transport Experiment (INTEX-B), the second of a two-phase project that aims to understand the transport and evolution of gases and tiny particles called aerosols across continents and to assess their impact on regional air quality and climate. During INTEX-B, researchers will pursue the origins of pollution that ultimately finds its way to North America and affects air in the lower part of the atmosphere where we live and breathe, the troposphere.

The first phase of INTEX-B will take place in March with cooperation from the Mexican government and will focus on the outflow of pollution from Mexico City. The second phase will be completed in April when Asian pollution transport to North America is at its peak.

“There has been a significant growth in the number and size of mega-cities like Mexico City, the second largest city in the world with 18 million residents,” said atmospheric chemist Hanwant Singh, lead mission scientist for INTEX-B at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “These cities generate atmospheric concentrations of pollutants that routinely exceed the standards recommended by the World Health Organization. With our partners, we’ll be looking at how much pollution Mexico City generates, and what happens to that pollution as it travels long distances downwind. It’s essential for us to seek answers to these questions to determine how this pollution from abroad affects our air quality. Ultimately, this is very much tied to our health as human beings.”

Both high-flying NASA DC-8 and DLR Falcon-20 aircraft and low-flying aircraft like the National Science Foundation (NSF)/National Center for Atmospheric Research’s (NCAR) C-130, the Sky Research J-31 (flown under contract to NASA), Langley Research Center’s Be-200 King Air, and the U.S. Department Of Energy’s (DOE) G-1, will be used to provide comprehensive radiation, chemical, physical, and visual measurements of gases and aerosols. INTEX-B researchers will also closely coordinate their observations from planes with that of NASA satellites, especially Aura, Aqua, Terra, and the European Envisat.

“This is an international experiment for an issue that has international implications,” said Singh. “The Mexican government, the U.S., the German government, and others are all involved in this effort to protect this natural resource that we all breathe.”

“There is evidence that imported Asian pollution causes ozone levels in the air crossing the western border of the U.S to increase. This makes efforts to achieve American air quality standards more difficult and costly,” said Singh. “Though we don’t have any control over pollution coming from other countries, we can try to predict the quality of our future air and climate based on its source. These scientific experiments are necessary to do this.”

Central to achieving INTEX-B objectives is the ability to connect observations taken from space with those gathered from aircraft-based instruments and ground-level stations. The overall experiment will be supported by forecasts from meteorological and chemical models, satellite observations, and ground-level networks.

In addition to understanding the life cycle of pollutants downwind of large regions where they originate, INTEX-B will allow researchers to test and improve their current ability to track the movement of airborne chemicals with computer models as well as observations from space, air, and the ground. Both phases of INTEX will investigate how levels of carbon dioxide and oxygenated organic compounds, like alcohol and acetates that create air pollutants, change with the seasons.

Last summer, during the first phase of this project, researchers focused on the outflow of pollution from North America to Europe.

NASA will collaborate on this project with the NSF; NCAR, Boulder; DOE,; Germany’s Aerospace Research Center and Space Agency; Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa.; Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; University of Hawaii-Hilo; University of Miami; University of Colorado, Boulder; Florida State University, Tallahassee; University of San Diego; University of Virginia, Charlottesville; University of Maryland-Baltimore County; University of California-Berkeley; Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta; and the University of New Hampshire. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Langley Research Center, and Ames Research Center are key contributors for the agency.

For more information about INTEX-B on the Web, visit:
http://www.espo.nasa.gov/intex-b/index.html

For more information about related field missions:
http://cloud1.arc.nasa.gov/

For more information about NASA’s DC-8 research aircraft:
http://trc.dfrc.nasa.gov/Newsroom/FactSheets/FS-050-DFRC.html

For more information about the Terra satellite:
http://terra.nasa.gov/

For more information about the Aqua satellite:
http://aqua.nasa.gov/

For more information about the Aura satellite:
http://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/

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Contact:

Gretchen Cook-Anderson
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

This text derived from http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/gas_transport.html

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