Publications by authors named "Abuhassan N"

Nitrogen dioxide (NO) pollution remains a serious global problem, particularly near highly populated urbanized coasts that face increasing challenges with climate change. Yet, the combined impact of urban emissions, pollution transport, and complex meteorology on the spatiotemporal dynamics of NO along heterogeneous urban coastlines remains poorly characterized. Here, we integrated measurements from different platforms - boats, ground-based networks, aircraft, and satellites - to characterize total column NO (TCNO) dynamics across the land-water continuum in the New York metropolitan area, the most populous area in the United States that often experiences the highest national NO levels.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The COVID-19 pandemic led to significant reductions in nitrogen oxide (NO) emissions in New York City due to strict lockdowns, with a reported 30% decline above long-term trends.
  • Measurements showed immediate drops in NO levels, up to 36% in Manhattan and between 19%-29% in surrounding areas during spring 2020.
  • Post-lockdown, emissions gradually increased but saw another decline during the second wave of the pandemic, with meteorological conditions affecting NO levels, especially in Manhattan.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Decades of air quality improvements have substantially reduced the motor vehicle emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Today, volatile chemical products (VCPs) are responsible for half of the petrochemical VOCs emitted in major urban areas. We show that VCP emissions are ubiquitous in US and European cities and scale with population density.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

NASA deployed the GeoTASO airborne UV-Visible spectrometer in May-June 2017 to produce high resolution (approximately 250 × 250 m) gapless NO datasets over the western shore of Lake Michigan and over the Los Angeles Basin. The results collected show that the airborne tropospheric vertical column retrievals compare well with ground-based Pandora spectrometer column NO observations (r=0.91 and slope of 1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Near-surface air quality (AQ) observations over coastal waters are scarce, a situation that limits our capacity to monitor pollution events at land-water interfaces. Satellite measurements of total column (TC) nitrogen dioxide (NO) observations are a useful proxy for combustion sources but the once daily snapshots available from most sensors are insufficient for tracking the diurnal evolution and transport of pollution. Ground-based remote sensors like the Pandora Spectrometer Instrument (PSI) that have been developed to verify space-based total column NO and other trace gases are being tested for routine use as certified AQ monitors.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Vertical column density (VCD) of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) was measured using Pandora spectrometers at six sites on the Korean Peninsula during the Megacity Air Pollution Studies-Seoul (MAPS-Seoul) campaign from May to June 2015. To estimate the tropospheric NO VCD, the stratospheric NO VCD from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) was subtracted from the total NO VCD from Pandora. European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis wind data was used to analyze variations in tropospheric NO VCD caused by wind patterns at each site.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Indirect anthropometry (IA) is one of the craniofacial anthropometry methods to perform the measurements on the digital facial images. In order to get the linear measurements, a few definable points on the structures of individual facial images have to be plotted as landmark points. Currently, most anthropometric studies use landmark points that are manually plotted on a 3D facial image by the examiner.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The Korea-United States Air Quality Study (KORUS-AQ) conducted during May-June 2016 offered the first opportunity to evaluate direct-sun observations of formaldehyde (HCHO) total column densities with improved Pandora spectrometer instruments. The measurements highlighted in this work were conducted both in the Seoul megacity area at the Olympic Park site (37.5232° N, 27.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * Results show strong agreement between satellite and ground measurements, but discrepancies arise under certain conditions, with variances up to ±65% for nitrogen dioxide and ±23% for ozone, particularly affected by cloud cover and aerosol levels.
  • * The findings suggest improvements are needed in satellite retrieval algorithms and quality control processes to account for the influences of atmospheric conditions on measurements.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • * A planetary boundary-layer (PBL) height correction factor is applied to improve the estimates of surface mixing ratios, significantly accounting for about 75% of the variability in the NO data sets.
  • * The researchers also investigate sulfur dioxide (SO) correlations, improving accuracy by excluding background surface levels, and apply this method to data from the July 2011 DISCOVER-AQ mission in polluted urban areas like greater Baltimore, MD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF