Air Quality Transcript

 

Particulate matter and greenhouse gases that are released from fires not only affect the climate and climate change, but they also then affect human health and air quality. Historically, our biggest success has been the implementation of NASA satellite data into air quality models that forecast and predict air quality and also look at retrospective air quality. Currently what we're doing to enhance these models is we're improving our estimates of cropland and agricultural burning. And with that information we can better forecast air quality in the regions downwind from that burning. In the future what we're going to be able to do is use satellite data to accurately estimate injection height--the height to which smoke plumes rise. And also where the smoke is transported across the landscape and where it will come down. And when we get that right then we'll be able to improve the forecast of air quality, where air quality is going to be poor. And when people know where the air quality is poor, then they can protect themselves from harmful pollutants.