A Comparative Analysis of Satellite-Derived CO Retrievals During the 2020 Wildfires in North America.

In September 2020, the Western United States experienced anomalously severe wildfires that resulted in carbon monoxide (CO) emissions almost three times the 2001-2019 average. In this study, we investigate the influence of wildfires on atmospheric carbon monoxide (CO) variability through a comparative analysis of observations from the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT), the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI), and the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI). Our focus is on the North American domain, aiming to understand the differences among these products.

Remote sensing and model analysis of biomass burning smoke transported across the Atlantic during the 2020 Western US wildfire season.

Biomass burning is the main source of air pollution in several regions worldwide nowadays. This predominance is expected to increase in the upcoming years as a result of the rising number of devastating wildfires due to climate change. Harmful pollutants contained in the smoke emitted by fires can alter downwind air quality both locally and remotely as a consequence of the recurrent transport of biomass burning plumes across thousands of kilometers.

Ethylene industrial emitters seen from space.

Volatile organic compounds are emitted abundantly from a variety of natural and anthropogenic sources. However, in excess, they can severely degrade air quality. Their fluxes are currently poorly represented in inventories due to a lack of constraints from global measurements.

On the weekly cycle of atmospheric ammonia over European agricultural hotspots.

The presence of a weekly cycle in the abundance of an atmospheric constituent is a typical fingerprint for the anthropogenic nature of its emission sources. However, while ammonia is mainly emitted as a consequence of human activities, a weekly cycle has never been detected in its abundances at large scale. We expose here for the first time the presence of a weekend effect in the NH total columns measured by the IASI satellite sounder over the main agricultural source regions in Europe: northwestern Europe (Belgium-the Netherlands-northwest Germany), the Po Valley, Brittany, and, to a lesser extent, the Ebro Valley.

Surface-to-space atmospheric waves from Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption.

The January 2022 Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption was one of the most explosive volcanic events of the modern era, producing a vertical plume that peaked more than 50 km above the Earth. The initial explosion and subsequent plume triggered atmospheric waves that propagated around the world multiple times. A global-scale wave response of this magnitude from a single source has not previously been observed.