A027-01
New Era of Air Quality Monitoring from Space – First Observations from Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS)
Monday, 7 December 2020: 20:32
Virtual
Jhoon Kim1, Dongwon Lee2, Myoung-Hwan Ahn3, Jae H Kim4, Rokjin Park5, Hanlim Lee6, Chul H. Song7, Yong-Sang Choi3, Kwon Ho Lee8, Jungmoon Yoo3, Seon K Park3, Kwang-Mog Lee9, Chang-Keun Song10, Sang-Woo Kim5, Si-Wan Kim1, Jongmin Yoon2, Won-Jin Lee2, Hyunkee Hong2, Chang-Suk Lee11, Wonjun Choi2, Yuha Kim11, Kyung-Jung Moon2, Dai Ho Ko12, Seung-Hoon Lee13, Heesung Chong1, Sujung Go14,15, Sang Seo Park16, Yeseul Cho17, Hana Lee14, Seoyoung Lee14, Mina Kang18, Mijin Eo3, Juseon Bak19, Kanghyun Baek4, Hyeonsic Nam4, Hyeong-Ahn Kwon20, Jiwon Yang6, Junsung Park6, Kyung Man Han21, Mikyung CHOI22, Haklim Choi9, Ebony Lee18, Gyuyeon Kim3, Yesol CHA16, Xiong Liu19, Kelly Chance19, Joris P Veefkind23, Jassim A Al-Saadi24, Ben Veihelmann25 and GEMS Science Team, (1)Yonsei University, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Seoul, Korea, Republic of (South), (2)National Institute of Environmental Research, Environmental Satellite Center, Incheon, South Korea, (3)Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea, (4)Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea, (5)Seoul National University, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seoul, South Korea, (6)Pukyong National University, Busan, South Korea, (7)GIST Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Engineering, Gwangju, South Korea, (8)Gangneung-Wonju National University, Gangneung, Korea, Republic of (South), (9)Kyungpook National University, Astronomy and Atmospheric Sciences, Daegu, Korea, Republic of (South), (10)Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan, Korea, Republic of (South), (11)National Institute of Environmental Research, Environmental Satellite Center, Inchon, South Korea, (12)Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Daejeon, Korea, Republic of (South), (13)Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Daejeon, South Korea, (14)Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, Republic of (South), (15)UMBC, Baltimore, United States, (16)Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan, South Korea, (17)Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea, (18)Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea, Republic of (South), (19)Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, United States, (20)Seoul National University, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Seoul, Korea, Republic of (South), (21)GIST Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Gwangju, Korea, Republic of (South), (22)Gangneung Wonju National University, Gangneung, South Korea, (23)Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, De Bilt, 3730, Netherlands, (24)NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, United States, (25)ESA-ESTEC, Noordwijk, Netherlands
Abstract:
The Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS) was launched in February 18, 2020 to monitor air quality over Asia at an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution from a geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) for the first time. After arriving at GEO in March, GEMS started the first observation in April and has been under in orbit tests. With the UV–visible spectrometers at sub-nm spectral resolution and sophisticated retrieval algorithms, hourly estimates of the column amounts of atmospheric pollutants (O3, NO2, SO2, HCHO, CHOCHO, and aerosols) can now be obtained. To date, all the UV–visible satellite missions monitoring air quality have been in low Earth orbit (LEO), allowing one to two observations per day. With UV–visible instruments on GEO platforms, the diurnal variations of these pollutants can now be determined. Details of the GEMS mission status are presented, including instrumentation, scientific algorithms, and initial results. GEMS onboard the Geostationary Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite 2 (GEO-KOMPSAT-2) satellite series, also hosts the Advanced Meteorological Imager (AMI) and Geostationary Ocean Color Imager 2 (GOCI-2). These three instruments will provide synergistic science products to better understand air quality, meteorology, the long-range transport of air pollutants, emission source distributions, and chemical processes. Faster sampling rates at higher spatial resolution will increase the probability of finding cloud-free pixels, leading to more observations of aerosols and trace gases than is possible from LEO. GEMS will be joined by NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) and ESA’s Sentinel-4 to form a GEO AQ satellite constellation in early 2020s, coordinated by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS).
