A new study led by a team of University of Minnesota researchers, with CIRES co-authors, provides the first global satellite measurements of one of the most important chemicals affecting Earth’s atmosphere.
Isoprene is a natural hydrocarbon emitted to the atmosphere in vast quantities—approximately 500 billion kg per year—by plants and trees. Isoprene is chemically reactive, and once in the atmosphere it combines with human-caused pollutants to adversely affect air quality. Isoprene also reacts with the main atmospheric oxidizing agent—called OH radicals—and therefore reduces the capacity of the atmosphere to scrub itself of pollutants and greenhouse gases.
Scientists look to atmospheric models to predict current and future atmospheric composition and air quality, as well as to diagnose the atmosphere’s ability to remove greenhouse gases and air pollutants. But isoprene emission rates are highly uncertain due to sparse ground-based measurements, and scientists are also unsure of the extent to which isoprene acts to suppress or sustain the abundance of OH radicals in the atmosphere.
Now, researchers have developed the first-ever global measurements of isoprene from space. Using observations from the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) sensor on Suomi NPP, a NOAA operated satellite, researchers developed a retrieval method that uses machine learning to determine the atmospheric concentration of isoprene over different parts of the world. They combined these measurements with atmospheric modeling to test current scientific understanding of global isoprene emissions and of how isoprene affects atmospheric oxidation. The research was published today in the journal Nature. CIRES scientists Joost de Gouw and Carsten Warneke are co-authors on the paper.
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