STAQS

Synergistic TEMPO Air Quality Science
NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of POllution (TEMPO) mission launched in April 2023 to provide geostationary observations of air quality over North America. With this addition of unprecedented high-resolution satellite measurements, the Synergistic TEMPO Air Quality Science (STAQS) mission sought to integrate TEMPO satellite observations with traditional air quality monitoring to improve understanding of air quality science and increase societal benefit of the mission. 

 

The colored blocks on the map represent of locations mapped by NASA aircraft during STAQS with noted flight dates. White circles show ground locations for measurements (PGN and TOLNet) supported by STAQS. Dates in yellow are those that coincide with TEMPO observations. The colored blocks on the map represent of locations mapped by NASA aircraft during STAQS with noted flight dates. White circles show ground locations for measurements (PGN and TOLNet) supported by STAQS. Dates in yellow are those that coincide with TEMPO observations. 

 

Between June-August 2023, STAQS operated two aircraft on 17 flight days totaling to ~270 flight hours in four domains: Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, and Toronto.  Measurements include column NO2, HCHO, and methane, ozone and aerosol profiling, and methane/CO2 emission rate estimates. 

 

 

The framework for STAQS stemmed from measurements strategies and collaborations developed during airborne air quality studies from the last decade. For STAQS, NASA collaborated with partners conducting complementary air quality studies in 2023 (full list summarized on the AGES+ website) building a synergistic observing system more robust than any singular entity could provide alone.   

To date, measurements from STAQS and AGES+ have been heavily used in TEMPO validation, which contributed to the TEMPO team achieving provisional validation status for their NO2, HCHO, and ozone products in December 2024.  Ongoing work includes, but is not limited to continued evaluation of TEMPO level 2 products geo-physically, spatially, and temporally, interpreting the temporal and spatial evolution of air quality events tracked by TEMPO, and improving temporal estimates of anthropogenic, biogenic, and greenhouse gas emissions. 

A Tale of Three Pollutants
Scott Collis of Argonne National Laboratory, left, and community leader Nedra Sims Fears work to advance urban resilience through science. They collaborated with NASA during the STAQS air quality mission in Chicago. NASA/Kathleen Gaeta

It was a hazy August day on Chicago’s South Side, and Nedra Sims Fears was hosting a small gathering to talk about the air. Interstate-94, which bisects her Chatham neighborhood, hummed nearby. “This was the summer I spent watching summer out my window,” Fears said. 

That’s because asthma runs in her family, and smoke from wildfires in Canada had wafted into Chicago, making it difficult for her to breathe. Many of her neighbors don’t have air conditioning, which means they don’t have the luxury of shutting their windows against the tiny hazardous particles contained in the smoke.

Several thousand feet above the Fears’ home, one of the largest flying laboratories in the world circled the skies over Chicago. The plane – NASA’s four-engine DC-8 jet – is a storied research craft. Over the past 25 years it has supported field campaigns across all seven continents. On this August 2023 day, it carried 40 researchers and a pack of scientific instruments investigating air pollution over the cities and pasturelands of the Midwest.

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NASA-led Mission to Map Air Pollution in 3D Over Megacities

NASA-led Mission to Map Air Pollution in 3D Over Megacities Describes the roles of STAQS, AEROMMA, TOLnet and Pandora for helping TEMPO understand the constituents of megacity pollution.

NASA-led Mission to Map Air Pollution in 3D Over Megacities

 

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