PIA17433: NASA's AIRS Instrument Sees Spread of Pollution from Western Wildfires
 Target Name:  Earth
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Aqua
 Spacecraft:  Aqua
 Instrument:  AIRS
 Product Size:  1279 x 713 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  JPL
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA17433.tif (2.737 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA17433.jpg (60.04 kB)

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A new movie produced with data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft shows the spread of carbon monoxide pollution across North America from fires in the Western U.S., including the Beaver Creek Fire in Idaho and the Rim Fire in California. The movie shows carbon monoxide concentrations at altitude 18,000 feet (5.5 kilometers) as measured by AIRS.

About AIRS
The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder, AIRS, in conjunction with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit, AMSU, senses emitted infrared and microwave radiation from Earth to provide a three-dimensional look at Earth's weather and climate. Working in tandem, the two instruments make simultaneous observations all the way down to Earth's surface, even in the presence of heavy clouds. With more than 2,000 channels sensing different regions of the atmosphere, the system creates a global, three-dimensional map of atmospheric temperature and humidity, cloud amounts and heights, greenhouse gas concentrations, and many other atmospheric phenomena. Launched into Earth orbit in 2002, the AIRS and AMSU instruments fly onboard NASA's Aqua spacecraft and are managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., under contract to NASA. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

More information about AIRS can be found at http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2013-08-27