How do we know for sure about Atmospheric Aerosols?
Dr. Brent Holben explains how NASA's program of global ground-based sun photometers measure aerosols at the surface and why those measurements are so vital to understanding the Earth's processes at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference. Also available on YouTube
The Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) is one of the first places that scientists turn when volcanoes, wildfires, pollution plumes, dust storms and many other phenomena-both natural and manmade-make an appearance. The network of ground-based instruments, called sun photometers, measures the many tiny particles blowing about in the atmosphere called aerosols. The particles are often impossible to see with human eyes, but AERONET's sensors can detect their presence by measuring subtle fluctuations in sunlight as the particles reflect and scatter the sun's rays.
This presentation was given at the United States Center at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference on Nov 10, 2021.
This visualization by Dr. Bill Putman shows the global distribution of aerosols, generated by NASA’s GEOS-FP data assimilation system, from August 1, 2019 to January 14,2020. Different aerosol species are highlighted by color, including dust (orange), sea-salt (blue), nitrates (pink), sulfates (green), and carbon (red), with brighter regions corresponding to higher aerosol amounts. More information is available about this animation at https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/31100
AERONET is only possible because of the cooperative efforts of the global AERONET community. Here are some of the people that make this data possible.From Clockwise, Beijing, Lille, Boulder, Valladolid, Greenbelt (GSFC). The photo above the Beijing group was contributed by Sharon J. Anderson, a story teller, taken at sunrise on Tuesday Oct. 5 on the Beltsville farm.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
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Animator
- Megan Willy (IRC/UMBC)
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Video editor
- Brooke Harris (USRA)
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Scientists
- Alexander Smirnov (SSAI)
- Brent Holben (NASA/GSFC)
- David Giles (NASA)
- Gavin A. Schmidt (NASA/GSFC GISS)
- Joel Schafer (SSAI)
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Videographers
- Michelle Williams (UMBC)
- Rob Andreoli (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.)
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Technical support
- Eric Sokolowsky (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
- Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC)
- Marit Jentoft-Nilsen (None)
Series
This visualization can be found in the following series:Related Pages
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ID: 12772 Produced Video
![Tracking aerosols over land and water from August 1 to November 1, 2017. Hurricanes and tropical storms are obvious from the large amounts of sea salt particles caught up in their swirling winds. The dust blowing off the Sahara, however, gets caught by water droplets and is rained out of the storm system. Smoke from the massive fires in the Pacific Northwest region of North America are blown across the Atlantic to the UK and Europe. This visualization is a result of combining NASA satellite data with sophisticated mathematical models that describe the underlying physical processes.Music: Elapsing Time by Christian Telford [ASCAP], Robert Anthony Navarro [ASCAP]Complete transcript available.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.](/vis/a010000/a012700/a012772/12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_1080p_youtube_1080.00001_print.jpg)
2017 Hurricanes and Aerosols Simulation
Read moreTracking aerosols over land and water from August 1 to November 1, 2017. Hurricanes and tropical storms are obvious from the large amounts of sea salt particles caught up in their swirling winds. The dust blowing off the Sahara, however, gets caught by water droplets and is rained out of the storm system. Smoke from the massive fires in the Pacific Northwest region of North America are blown across the Atlantic to the UK and Europe. This visualization is a result of combining NASA satellite data with sophisticated mathematical models that describe the underlying physical processes.Music: Elapsing Time by Christian Telford [ASCAP], Robert Anthony Navarro [ASCAP]Complete transcript available.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_1080p_youtube_1080.00001_print.jpg (1024x576) [161.7 KB] || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_1080p_youtube_1080.00001_searchweb.png (320x180) [108.8 KB] || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_1080p_youtube_1080.00001_thm.png (80x40) [7.5 KB] || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_1080p-prores.mov (1920x1080) [4.3 GB] || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_1080p_large.mp4 (1920x1080) [163.1 MB] || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_appletv.m4v (1280x720) [78.1 MB] || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_youtube_1080.mp4 (1920x1080) [247.2 MB] || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_youtube_720.mp4 (1280x720) [247.9 MB] || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_facebook_720.mp4 (1280x720) [184.9 MB] || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_twitter_720.mp4 (1280x720) [34.1 MB] || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols.webm (960x540) [65.0 MB] || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_appletv_subtitles.m4v (1280x720) [78.1 MB] || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_UHD_4444.mov (3840x2160) [40.1 GB] || 12772_hurricanes_and_aerosols_UHD.mp4 (3840x2160) [739.9 MB] || 12772_hurricanes_aerosols_captions.en_US.srt [3.1 KB] || 12772_hurricanes_aerosols_captions.en_US.vtt [3.1 KB] ||
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ID: 31100 Hyperwall Visual
Global Transport of Smoke from Australian Bushfires
Read moreAnimation of global aerosols from August 1, 2019 to January 29, 2020 || australia_fire_smoke_print.jpg (1024x576) [184.6 KB] || australia_fire_smoke.png (3840x2160) [8.2 MB] || australia_fire_smoke_searchweb.png (320x180) [104.5 KB] || australia_fire_smoke_thm.png (80x40) [7.7 KB] || australia_fire_smoke_1080p.mp4 (1920x1080) [228.5 MB] || australia_fire_smoke_720p.webm (1280x720) [11.3 MB] || australia_fire_smoke_2160p.mp4 (3840x2160) [688.8 MB] || frames/10080x5043_2x1_60p/AerosolFrames/ (10080x5043) [512.0 KB] || frames/5760x3240_16x9_60p/AerosolFrames/ (5760x3240) [512.0 KB] ||
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ID: 13263 Produced Video
New NASA Campaign Tracks Wildfire Smoke for Improved Air Quality Forecasts Live Shots
Read moreB-roll for the following suggested questions:1. We all know NASA as a space agency. How can NASA’s unique perspective inform us about wildfires?2. NASA researchers are in the field right now tracking smoke from wildfires. What are they seeing from the air and ground?3. This June was the hottest June on record, with early data pointing to July being the warmest month on record. What impact has that had on this year’s fire season?4. When you think of wildfires, you usually associate that with the western part of the U.S. How can wildfires affect us throughout the world?5. How does a changing planet contribute to longer and hotter wildfires?6. Where can people learn more?Click here for on-camera canned interviewsClick here for audio interviews and NAT sound || FINAL_broll_2.00001_print.jpg (1024x576) [142.0 KB] || FINAL_broll_2.00001_searchweb.png (320x180) [93.3 KB] || FINAL_broll_2.00001_thm.png (80x40) [7.4 KB] || FINAL_broll_1.mov (1280x720) [3.0 GB] || FINAL_broll_2.mp4 (1280x720) [225.9 MB] || FINAL_broll_1.webm (1280x720) [24.2 MB] ||
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ID: 13253 Produced Video
A Drier Future Sets the Stage for More Wildfires
Read moreMusic: Motion Blur by Sam Dodson, Spring Into Life by Oliver Worth, and Critical Pathway by Rik Carter. Complete transcript available. || Camp_Fire_oli_2018312_Landsat.jpg (3017x2011) [1.3 MB] || Camp_Fire_oli_2018312_Landsat_searchweb.png (320x180) [119.1 KB] || Camp_Fire_oli_2018312_Landsat_thm.png (80x40) [7.6 KB] || DroughtsFires_V2.mov (1920x1080) [3.2 GB] || DroughtsFires_V2.mp4 (1920x1080) [158.2 MB] || DroughtsFires_V2.webm (1920x1080) [17.2 MB] || DroughtsFires_V2.en_US.srt [2.7 KB] || DroughtsFires_V2.en_US.vtt [2.7 KB] ||
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ID: 3868 Visualization
Global Fire Observations and MODIS NDVI
Read moreThis visualization leads viewers on a narrated global tour of fire detections beginning in July 2002 and ending July 2011. The visualization also includes vegetation and snow cover data to show how fires respond to seasonal changes. The tour begins in Australia in 2002 by showing a network of massive grassland fires spreading across interior Australia as well as the greener Eucalyptus forests in the northern and eastern part of the continent. The tour then shifts to Asia where large numbers of agricultural fires are visible first in China in June 2004, then across a huge swath of Europe and western Russia in August, and then across India and Southeast Asia through the early part of 2005. It moves next to Africa, the continent that has more abundant burning than any other. MODIS observations have shown that some 70 percent of the world's fires occur in Africa alone. In what's a fairly average burning season, the visualization shows a huge outbreak of savanna fires during the dry season in Central Africa in July, August, and September of 2006, driven mainly by agricultural activities but also by the fact that the region experiences more lightning than anywhere else in the world. The tour shifts next to South America where a steady flickering of fire is visible across much of the Amazon rainforest with peaks of activity in September and November of 2009. Almost all of the fires in the Amazon are the direct result of human activity, including slash-and-burn agriculture, because the high moisture levels in the region prevent inhibit natural fires from occurring. It concludes in North America, a region where fires are comparatively rare. North American fires make up just 2 percent of the world's burned area each year. The fires that receive the most attention in the United States, the uncontrolled forest fires in the West, are less visible than the wave of agricultural fires prominent in the Southeast and along the Mississippi River Valley, but some of the large wildfires that struck Texas earlier this spring are visible. More information on the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) is available at http://maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/. ||
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ID: 10621 Produced Video
Robots on the Roof
Read moreThe Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) is one of the first places that scientists turn when volcanoes, wildfires, pollution plumes, dust storms and many other phenomena-both natural and manmade-make an appearance. The network of ground-based instruments, called sun photometers, measures the many tiny particles blowing about in the atmosphere called aerosols. The particles are often impossible to see with human eyes, but AERONET's sensors can detect their presence by measuring subtle fluctuations in sunlight as the particles reflect and scatter the sun's rays. ||
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