This paper is based on the work of 2017, in which a neural network algorithm was developed for retrieving aerosol layer height (ALH) from the OMI O2-O2 visible measurements. This time, we directly compare our retrievals with CALIOPaerosol observations and evaluate the spatial patterns on several remarkable case studies including urban pollution, biomass burning events and a Saharan dust outbreak!
In a world that is continuously evolving, and where it is very difficult to find adequate information about our environment and used observations, my only hope was to share some news about my topics of interest (trace gases, aerosol, air quality, climate), get more reliable information and increase (if possible) my network. I must admit that I was initially a bit skeptical.
But the numbers that I have now somehow surprise me: 3091 visits last year from some 1147 visitors. Since January, already 1127 views from 550 visitors! This may look very little for some people. But for me, this is quite significant! I have no idea whether people really got interest in my work and/or website, or just found a bit by chance some of the webpages.
What is for sure not a coincidence: 96 people connected with me viaTwitter, most of them / you that I don’t really know, and regularly exchanging scientific news with me. And about 56 posts posted alone or with some friends!
I don’t know who you are, and whether you found my HomePage by chance. But for all the scientific news and exciting exchanges that I have, thank you! In spite of my restricted time, I will keep updating this Homepage and my Twitter account on a more or less regular basis!
The Earth observation science journey, using satellites, continues!
Our research works achieved with my colleagues from Geoscience & Remote Sensing (GRS) – TU Delft, and KNMI, before my leaving, will be presented via a poster at EGU 2018. In particular, recent findings and the last publication on the retrieval of aerosol layer height (ALH) from the OMI 477 nm O2-O2 band and using the developed neural network algorithm will be shown
Don’t miss the poster presentation by Prof. Dr. Pieternel Levelt on Monday 09.04 17:30 – 19:00 in Hall X5 at board number X5.170!
Recent results of OMI Aerosol Layer Height Retrieval over East China by Chimot et al. (2018) (just accepted for publication in AMT).
More information?
Abstract EGU2018 “Aerosol layer height from OMI and neural network – Evaluation and possibility of a 13-year time series?” here
2017 was an intensive year for my research activity focused on validating the aerosol height retrieval using neural networks (NN), and improving the aerosol correction in tropospheric NO2 determination. Both from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) satellite. What was new in 2017?:
our paper on the design of the OMIaerosol layer height (ALH) NN algorithm was published here
the next paper on its evaluation on specific cases was submitted and is currently under review
I am happy to have co-authored the work of Proestakis et al., on a new desert dust aerosol climatology dataset over Asia from 9-year CALIOP observations here
I had the opportunity to share the outcome of our activities at 5 conferences and seminars here
Still in science, with a keen eye on atmospheric composition observations from satellites of course!
I am very glad to join the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), based in Darmstadt Germany, and to join the scientists and groups working on the development of the atmospheric products (aerosols, fires, H2O, etc…) from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 space-borne mission. If you are interested by this topic, stay tuned and keep following this blog and my twitter account. I will continue sharing exciting findings, news, maps, etc…
Of course, I will still keep a very interested eye on all the other satellite observations (in particular TROPOMI) and groups working on similar topics. I take the opportunity to emphasise how honoured and enthusiastic I am to have worked during 4 years with KNMI and GRS – TU Delft. In particular, I am very grateful to my Promotors Prof. Dr. Pieternel Levelt, Dr. Pepijn Veefkind and Dr. Tim Vlemmix. I do not forget all my colleagues and friends who closely or remotely shared this journey!
Last but not least, 2018 should witness the awarding of my PhD doctoral degree, related to my OMI, aerosol and NO2 research work, from TU Delft and KNMI. Gotten curious about the book to be published in the next months? Here just an illustration of the expected cover (thanks to my friend Remi Charton for his design talents!). Stay tuned!
Expected cover of my (draft) PhD book GRS-TU Delft / KNMI to be published in 2018 (Credits Remi Charton for the design).
Spatial distribution of the seasonal mean CALIPSO AOD, D_AOD, optical depth difference between AOD and D_AOD (non-dust AOD), and the percentage of D_AOD with respect to the total AOD for the domain between 65–155 E and 5–55 N and for the period January 2007–December 2015 (Proestakis et al., 2018)
A recent work achieved by my colleagues of the National Observatory of Athens (NOA): 9 years of observations acquired by the CALIOP space-borne instrument were combined with EARLINET ground-based measurements to provide a climatology of desert dust particles over South and East Asia.
Having such a knowledge is important for many research studies focused on atmospheric transport and climate effect of dust.
You can see more details on my webpage here, and the paper of Proestakis et al. (2018) published in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) journal here.
2017 is about finishing, 2018 is going to take over. Here is a personal retrospective view on 2017 with a subjective selection of remarkable satellite images.
Wildfires across the globe
Massive wildfires spread across parts of the world such as Chile; Western Canada and the United States; Portugal and Spain; France and even Greenland in 2017. The most recent once, California’s Thomas Fire, was even the largest wildfire of the year in the state. MODIS AquaAqua, Sentinel-2 and many other space-borne instruments reveal these episodes and their intensity. Due to the on-going changes in our climate, it is unfortunately expected that such fires will occur again in 2018, perhaps even stronger.
Natural-color images from MODIS-Aqua sensor, over east Canada within the period of 2017.07.31-2017.08.08. Red points indicate actively burning areas identified from MODIS, on-board Terra and Aqua platforms. Smokes stretch very far away from these points (Source: https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov).
Red Sun, dust and smoke in Europe
In October 2017, a unique combination of 2 independent events – fires in Portugal & Spain, and a tropical storm – brought dust and smoke all over Europe leading then an unusual red Sun observed in France, UK, Finland and the Netherlands. These events were observed notably by OMI, GOME-2 and MODIS Aqua. More information in No borders for particles! – Red Sun, Saharan dust and smoke over whole Europe
MODIS-Aqua visible image on 17.10.2017 (right) acquired in early afternoon: dust particles in yellow over France, united Kingdom and the Netherlands (Source: https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov)
Sentinel-1 B image acquired on 12 July 2017 shown the break off of he Larsen-C ice shelf, spawning one of the largest icebergs on record and changing the outline of the Antarctic Peninsula forever. Credit ESA (Source: http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/07/Larsen_C_breaks).
California wildfire lights in, Puerto Rico lights out
Satellite images of Earth “night lights” have been a curiosity for the public and a tool of fundamental research for at least 25 years. New global maps have been released by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center using the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi-NPP) satellite. Some of them depict in an impressive way some dramatic episodes of this year: Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States, leaving the island devastated and all but destroying its power grid; the fast-moving fire that swept into Ventura, California, on December 5, 2017. looking as bright as the urban Los Angeles area.
SUOMI-NPP images o night light in Puerto Rico on September 27-28 2017. One image in each pair shows a typical night before Maria made landfall, based upon cloud-free and low moonlight conditions; the second image is a composite that shows light detected by VIIRS on the nights of September 27 and 28, 2017. By compositing two nights, the image has fewer clouds blocking the view. (Note: some clouds still blocked light emissions during the two nights, especially across southeastern and western Puerto Rico.) The images above show widespread outages around San Juan, including key hospital and transportation infrastructure. Credit NASA (Source: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=91044).
The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite captured this nighttime image of the fire at 1:05 a.m. local time (09:05 Universal Time) on December 5, 2017. Credit NASA (Source: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=91376).
The Ophelia storm as observed by the Sentinel-3 A satellite. Left: image on 11.102017, when Hurricane Ophelia was about 1300 km south-west of the Azores islands and some 2000 km off the African coast. Right: Brightness temperature of the clouds at the top of the storm, some 12–15 km above the ocean, range from about –50°C near the eye of the storm to about 15°C at the edges on17.10.2017. Copyright ESA (Source: https://dragon3.esa.int/web/guest/missions/esa-eo-missions/sentinel-3/news/-/article/monitoring-hurricane-ophelia).
Of course, how not to finish this series without mentioning Sentinel-5 P and its instrument TROPOMI? Many persons waited for it for more than 10 years. I personally heard about it the first time some 5-6 years ago, and then waited for its launch during the last 4 years while working on my research with its predecessor OMI. And finally, just a few months before the end of my current job, Sentinel-5 P was launched, a very happy Friday 13th (October)!
With its unique high spatial resolution (7 x 3.5 km2) and top design sensor, this is the very first European operational mission dedicated to atmospheric composition within the Copernicus programme. The instrument is still under calibration until April 2018, being prepared for the developed services, and many works have to be done to derive accurate estimations of toxic gases and particles in the atmosphere. But the very 1st revealed maps of NO2 – Nitrogen dioxide, SO2 – Sulphur dioxide, O3 – Ozone, CO – Carbon monoxide are already outstanding. What is mostly remarkable are the very fine scale structures of all the pollution plumes already visible.
No doubt that the next months and years will be promising for this instrument. Air pollutants will be seen in much more detail than what has been accomplished before. And, while these first results demonstrate the sophistication of the satellite’s instrument, they certainly bring the issue of air pollution sharply into focus. Even though I am going to work on another project in 2018, I will keep a close eye on the next results from TROPOMIS5P.
One of the first images from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P mission shows nitrogen dioxide over Europe on 22 November 2017. It shows high emissions over the Po Valley in northern Italy and over western Germany. Nitrogen dioxide pollutes the air mainly as a result of industrial fossil fuel combustion and road traffic. Credit KNMI/ESA (Source: http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/12/Sentinel-5P_sees_nitrogen_dioxide_over_Europe).
CO – Carbon monoxide from TROPOMI S5P. Credit SRON/KNMI.
And in addition look at this NO2 global animation – an average over a couple of days from TROPOMI S5P. Credit KNMI / ESA here.
And so many other pictures of 2017 that I could have posted here, but I invite you to have a look to my past posted weblog pages.
Looking forward to more images and discoveries from space in 2018! And I wish to everyone reading this a Merry Christmas and a very healthy & happy new year!
25 years ago, in 1992, 1700 independent scientists already told us in their “World Scientists – Warning to Humanity – 1st Notice”. And yet, it seems that was not sufficient. This month, a second notice was submitted, this time by about 15,000 worldwide scientists. And the message is still quite clear: “the world is going toward catastrophic biodiversity loss and untold amounts of human misery” and we have little time to act before avoiding this.
This may sound like an unrealistic, even irrational alarmist message. But it is worth reminding that, since its beginning, science work (and scientists) is beforehand based on observations, facts, interpretations with evaluation of uncertainties, implementing models that are then continuously and thoroughly evaluated by confronting with observations.
This article is relatively short and very simple to read. No need to be an expert, every citizen can easily understand all the messages. I think this is the duty to each of us to take some minutes for reviewing it, and then thinking about our actions. Especially, the causes are nowadays well identified: rapid population growth, deforestation, agricultural production, and rising greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels that has triggered and driven our climate change.
For this last one, in spite of continuous denial and unjustified claims (especially in the USA), the odds from IPCC and COP23 are pretty clear: CO2 – Carbon dioxide and CH4 – Methane amount in the atmosphere are historically unique, and the emissions keep increasing. Some of these increases are also even observable from space.
Atmospheric levels of CH4 – Methane from 2003 to 2005 and 2008 to 2010, showing increased concentrations in the latter dataset (in red). The newly released ‘Climate Research Data Package No. 3’ covers more than one decade (2003–14) of atmospheric data products used to get information on the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide and methane. The data products are available through the website: http://www.esa-ghg-cci.org/ (Source ESA: http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/Methane_and_carbon_dioxide_on_the_rise).
A positive sign: stratospheric O3 – Ozone hole over Antarctic is recovering. If our actions have allowed to create and then solved this problem, then we can still do something, at every level, about the greenhouse gases.
Several journals and websites forwarded this article. But I have the feeling yet it could reach more and more people and lead to further discussions and actions in our societies. Hope this is not too late…
More information?
Ripple et al., 2017: Full articles World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity, 1st and 2nd notices here. You can also endorse the 2017 article here
European Space Agency (ESA): CO2 – Carbon dioxide and CH4 – Methane on the rise here
