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Reporter: Well it's officially summer, and that means we're all heading outdoors for pool parties

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and picnics. But as you fire up the grill, you might be surprised 

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to know that the air we breathe outdoors each summer is actually getting 

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cleaner across the country. And here to tell us more about it, out of

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NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is NASA

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air quality science team member Dr. Russ Dickerson. Thank you for 

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joining us! Russ: My pleasure, nice to be here. Reporter: So as the summer

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heats up, we often report on bad air quality, but what are these images

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really showing us about air quality in our area?

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Russ: Well there's a remarkable good news story, in that air quality has

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improved over the past few decades. This is certainly true for 

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the continental United States, where this important pollutant, nitrogen

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dioxide, that leads to smog, photochemical

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smog, sometimes called Los Angeles smog, was pretty bad in 

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2005, but this image from a NASA satellite shows that by

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2011, concentrations had dropped substantially. 

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We still have a ways to go. This is an image of the northeastern United States in 

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2005, the hotter the color, the redder the color, the worse the air quality, and we

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can see that there's a big improvement that has happened

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over the past 15 years or so. Reporter: Why 

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is this happening? Russ: Well, the engineers have done a good job for us, it's a 

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technical fix, a technological fix. Nitrogen dioxide comes

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out of tail pipes of cars, from power plants, from

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major industries, and cars are much cleaner than they were 20 years ago.

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In fact a car today produces only about 5% of the pollution 

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that came out of the tail pipe in say 1960. Power plants 

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have scrubbers on them now, and the air quality is much improved

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It's not perfect yet. Reporter: What have we learned about air 

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quality around the world? Russ: Well, 

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the developing world, North America and western Europe, have made great

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strides, great improvements. This is an image, a global image of

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the NO2. The hotter the color, the more pollution there is there. And you can see sort of pulsing

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that's a result of changes in seasonal weather.

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Well North America and Europe over time have made great improvements

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modern cars, improved power plants, and so on. The developing world especially

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south Asia and east Asia have not had so much success.

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They have a great increase in the number of cars

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on the road and the amount of electricity being generated, and

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it's not under control just yet. Reporter: Why is NASA

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studying air quality? Russ: NASA is uniquely 

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qualified to provide a global image. Now

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the EPA states, a lot of agencies monitor ozone at the Earth's surface,

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ozone and other air pollutants, but only NASA

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has the capability of putting an eye in the sky, to circle and cover the whole globe

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where you can fill in the blanks, you can make measurements

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every day throughout the year. This is a nice image of one of NASA's 

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satellites as flies over the globe. It covers the whole globe every day, and

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it can make measurements all the time and tell us

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give us a big picture of how things are coming down. It's been a tremendous improvement for those

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of us who are involved in trying to improve and regulate

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air quality to be able to get an image of the whole globe. 

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This is another image produced by NASA, it's actually a computer

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model, a numerical simulation, showing different kinds of pollution. And you can

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see that it's one planet that we live on, and pollution

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in one part of the globe blows over to another part, so we

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pollute Europe, the Europeans pollute Asia, Asia pollutes us, and this is

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a nice simulation of how the world's atmosphere works.

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Reporter: Well it's great to finally hear some good news about the environment. 

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Where can we learn more? Russ: Well, there's a very nice 

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website that NASA has. It's NASA.gov/earthrightnow. 

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Go there and you can get a lot of information on air

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quality and its trend over the years and what NASA's doing

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to understand our planet better. Reporter: Thank you

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very much. Russ: My pleasure. [beep beep...]

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[beep beep... beep beep...]

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