VIEWING URBAN AND REGIONAL AIR QUALITY FROM SPACE USING SPACEBORNE LIDAR

摘要

In 1994, NASA Langley Research Center operated the Lidar In-Space Technology Experiment (LITE) from the space shuttle Discovery (McCormick, 1996). For nine short days, LITE gave unprecedented global views of natural and man-made aerosols. LITE showed conclusively that important observational data on urban particulate emissions can be made from space. In 2004, NASA will launch the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO, the mission formerly known as PICASSO-CENA), a second generation spaceborne lidar system. The polar orbit of CALIPSO will allow daily coincidences of the lidar footprint with urban areas around the globe. This paper will discuss the potential for routine observation of urban to regional scale haze from the CALIPSO mission.