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AQAST Newsletter, July 2013

Welcome to the January 2013 Newsletter of the NASA Air Quality Applied Sciences Team (AQAST). AQAST is a team of atmospheric scientists serving air quality management needs through creative use of Earth Science data and tools. We conduct a wide range of projects in partnership with air quality agencies at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

This newsletter keeps you up to date on AQAST activities. The AQAST website has more comprehensive information. Also follow us on Twitter at @NASA_AQAST. To inquire about specific projects or request assistance please contact any AQAST member, team leader Daniel Jacob, or team deputy leader Tracey Holloway.

This newsletter was produced by Daniel Jacob (AQAST leader) and Bob Yantosca (AQAST webmaster). Subscribe/unsubscribe by email to Bob Yantosca.. Access previous newsletters here.

AQAST Semiannual Meetings

AQAST meetings are held on a semiannual schedule and bring together team members, air quality managers, and research and applications partners.

5th AQAST Meeting (AQAST5): Jue 4-6, 2013 at the University of Maryland at College Park

AQAST5 was held on June 4-6, 2013 at the University of Maryland at College Park. Our hosts were AQAST members Russ Dickerson and Bryan Duncan, together with Ana Prados who leads the NASA NASA Applied Remote SEnsing Training (ARSET). The meeting attracted over 130 attendees including air quality managers from a number of state, regional, and national agencies. Click here for the meeting program and links to the presentations.

6th AQAST Meeting (AQAST6): January 15-17, 2014 at the University of Texas at Austin

The next AQAST meeting (AQAST6) will be held January 15-17 (Wednesday-Friday) at the University of Texas at Austin. Our hosts will be Prof. David Allen from U. Texas Austin and AQAST member Dan Cohan. Mark your calendars!

AQAST Project Highlights

AQAST supports Wyoming exceptional event demonstration

AQAST member Brad Pierce provided aircraft, satellite, and modeling data to assist the state of Wyoming in an exceptional event demonstration related to a NAAQS ozone exceedance at Thunder Basin on June 5, 2012. Click here for more details

Saint Louis ozone garden gears up for its second year

AQAST member Jack Fishman is using ozone gardens to educate the public on the harm to vegetation from surface ozone. Click here to learn more. A second ozone garden was also recently started by the AQAST group at Harvard.

New MODIS aerosol product available

The new MODIS Level 3 aerosol product from AQAST member Edward Hyer has now been transitioned to NASA LANCE. Click here for press release. Satellite detection of aerosols, or particles in the atmosphere, provides one of the most useful remote sensing products for air quality analysis. This new MODIS product supports a wide range of applications for air quality management. It provides global, gridded aerosol optical depth (AOD) at a resolution of 1/2-degree latitude-longitude in near-real time, for immediate access. In addition to reducing error in the AOD retrievals, the product includes quantitative uncertainty estimates at each data point. Contact Edward Hyer for more information.

AQAST Meetings

AQAST4 meeting at California Air Resources Board

The 4th biannual AQAST meeting was held on Nov 29-30 2012 at the California Air Resources Board in Sacramento. It was a highly successful meeting by all accounts and provided AQAST with a better understanding of the air quality issues facing California. Click here to access the presentations from the meeting.

AQAST sessions at the Fall 2012 AGU meeting

AQAST organized a special session, "Application of satellite data to serve air quality management needs ", at the Fall 2012 meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on December 3-7. The session attracted 69 oral presentations spread over a full day as well as a half-day poster session. We also held a Town Hall to share information about AQAST and receive input from air quality managers and Earth Scientists interested in air quality applications.

Next AQAST meeting on June 4-6, 2013 at the University of Maryland

The next biannual AQAST meeting will be held on June 4-6 at the University of Maryland in College Park, hosted by AQAST member Russ Dickerson.The meeting will be free and open to all. Please mark your calendars. More information will be forthcoming and e-mailed to AQAST Newsletter subscribers.

New AQAST publications (with links)

Future fires in Southern California

Yue, X., L.J. Mickley, and J.A. Logan, Projection of wildfire activity in southern California in the mid-21st century, submitted to Clim. Dyn., 2013. Full paper

Future fires and PM in the western US

Yue, X., L. J. Mickley, J. A. Logan, and J. O. Kaplan, Ensemble projections of wildfire activity and carbonaceous aerosol concentrations over the western United States in the mid-21st century, in press, Atmospheric Environment, 2013. Full paper

Effect of rising CO₂ on isoprene emission and air quality implications

Tai, A.P.K., L.J. Mickley, C.L. Heald, S. Wu, Effect of CO2 inhibition on biogenic isoprene emission: Implications for air quality under 2000-to-2050 changes in climate, vegetation, and land use, in press, Geophys. Res. Let., 2013. Full paper

Detecting emissions from space: a review

Streets, D., T. Canty, G. Carmichael, B. de Foy, R. Dickerson,, B. Duncan, D. Edwards, J. Haynes, D. Henze, M. Houyoux, D. Jacob, N. Krotkov, L. Lamsal, Y. Liu, Z. Lu, R. Martin, Pfister, R. Pinder, R. Salawitch, and K. Wecht, Emissions estimation from satellite retrievals: A review of current capability, Atmos. Environ., in press, doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2013.05.051. Full paper

Use of satellite observations for PM forecasts

Saide, P. E., Carmichael, G. R., Liu, Z., Schwartz, C. S., Lin, H. C., da Silva, A. M., and Hyer, E.: Aerosol optical depth assimilation for a size-resolved sectional model: impacts of observationally constrained, multi-wavelength and fine mode retrievals on regional scale forecasts, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 13, 12213-12261, doi:10.5194/acpd-13-12213-2013, 2013. Full paper

Air quality modeling in Europe

Baklanov, A. Schluenzen, P. Suppan, J. Baldasano, D. Brunner, S. Aksoyoglu, G. Carmichael, et al., Online coupled regional meteorology-chemistry models in Europe: current status and prospects, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., 13, 12541–12724, doi:10.5194/acpd-13-12541-2013, 2013. Full paper

Air quality forecasting for Maryland

Garner, G.G., A.M. Thompson, P. Lee, and D.K. Martins, Evaluation of NAQFC model performance in forecasting surface ozone during the 2011 DISCOVER-AQ campaign, J. Atmos. Chem., DOI 10.1007/s10874-013-9251-z, 2013. [ Full paper]

Nitrogen deposition in US National Parks

Ellis, R.A., D.J. Jacob, M. Payer, L. Zhang, C.D. Holmes, B.A. Schichtel, T. Blett, E. Porter, L.H. Pardo, and J.A. Lynch, Present and future nitrogen deposition to national parks in the United States: critical load exceedances, submitted to Atmos. Chem. Phys., 2013. Full paper

Improved ammonia emission inventory for the US

Paulot F., Jacob, D.J., Pinder R.W., Bash J.O., Travis, K., Henze D.K., Ammonia emissions in the United States, Europe, and China derived by high-resolution inversion of ammonium wet deposition data: Interpretation with a new agricultural emissions inventory (MASAGE_NH3), submitted to J. Geophys. Res., 2013. Full paper

Older publications

See the AQAST publications webpage for the full list of AQAST publications.

New AQAST presentations (with links)

Presentations from the AQAST5 meeting (June 4-6, 2013)

Click here for the meeting agenda with links to all presentations.

DISCOVER-AQ and the uses of remote sensing in air quality and climate studies

presented by Russ Dickerson at Brookhaven National Lab, May 16, 2013. [Download ppt]

What can we learn from observations and modeling to inform inventory estimates?

presented by Russ Dickerson to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Air Management Association, Inc. (MARAMA), February 27, 2013. (Download pdf)

Iowa air quality: sources, trends, and new resources for emergency and routine events

presented by Scott Spak at the IPHA Governor’s Conference on Public Health, Ames, IA, 9 April 2013. Workshop handout Presentation

Modeling Ozone Exceptional Events: California, 2008 & Colorado/Wyoming, 2012

presented by Gabriele Pfister at the WESTAR Wildfire and Exceptional Ozone Events Meeting, California Air Resources Board, Sacramento, March 5-6, 2013 Meeting agenda and link to presentation