GOSAT Air Pollution Watch - Rapid Response System for Local Air Pollution

Abstract:

GOSAT (Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite) launched in 2009 and its successor, GOSAT-2, to be launched in FY 2017, have push-broom imaging systems with more than one UV band with higher spatial resolution than OMI, MODIS, and VIIRS. Such imaging systems are useful for mapping the spatial extent of the optically thick air mass with particulate matters.

GOSAT Air Pollution Watch, a rapid response system mainly using GOSAT CAI (Cloud and Aerosol Imager) data for local air pollution issues is being developed in NIES (National Institute for Environmental Studies) GOSAT-2 Project.

The current design of GOSAT Air Pollution Watch has three data processing steps as follows:

Step 1) Making a cloud mask

Step 2) Estimating AOT (Aerosol Optical Thickness) in the UV region (380 nm for CAI)

Step 3) Converting AOT to atmospheric pollution parameters such as PM2.5 concentration

Data processing algorithms in GOSAT Air Pollution Watch are based on GOSAT/GOSAT-2 algorithms for aerosol product generation with some modification for faster and timely data processing.

Data from GOSAT Air Pollution Watch will be used to inform the general public the current distribution of the polluted air. In addition, they will contribute to short term prediction of the spatial extent of the polluted air using atmospheric transport models.

In this presentation, the background, the current status, and the future prospect of GOSAT Air Pollution Watch will be reported together with the development status of GOSAT-2.