Observation of Air Pollution over China Using the IASI Thermal Infrared Space Sensor
Résumé
In this chapter we describe what is achievable in terms of pollutant tracking from space using observations provided by thermal infrared remote sensors. After a general introduction on infrared remote sensing, we exploit the data provided by the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) missions onboard the Metop series of satellite to illustrate pollution detection at various spatial and temporal scales. Then, we focus on air pollution over China and discuss three case studies involving different pollutants. The first example discusses the geophysical conditions for detection of ammonia (NH3) and sulfur dioxide (SO2), both precursors of particulate matter (PM). The second case illustrates the seasonal variation of ozone (O3), in particular during the monsoon period. The third case shows the local accumulation of enhanced levels of carbon monoxide (CO) when pollution episodes occur.