Although originally designed to measure atmospheric water vapor and
temperature profiles for weather forecasting, data from the Atmospheric
Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft are now also
being used by scientists to observe atmospheric carbon dioxide. Scientists
from NASA; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the
European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts; the University of
Maryland, Baltimore County; Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey;
and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, Calif.,
are using several different methods to measure the concentration of carbon
dioxide in the mid-troposphere (about eight kilometers, or five miles,
above the surface). The global map of mid-troposphere carbon dioxide
above, produced by AIRS Team Leader Dr. Moustafa Chahine at JPL, shows
that despite the high degree of mixing that occurs with carbon dioxide,
the regional patterns of atmospheric sources and sinks are still apparent
in mid-troposphere carbon dioxide concentrations. "This pattern of high
carbon dioxide in the Northern Hemisphere (North America, Atlantic Ocean,
and Central Asia) is consistent with model predictions," said Chahine.
Climate modelers, such as Dr. Qinbin Li at JPL, and Dr. Yuk Yung at
Caltech, are currently using the AIRS data to study the global
distribution and transport of carbon dioxide and to improve their models.
For more information on AIRS, visit the AIRS Project Web Site:
http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov. The AIRS data products are available at
http://daac.gsfc.nasa.gov/AIRS/index.shtml.
