Monitoring Air Pollutants and Greenhouse Gases from Space

Summary: Robust predictions of air pollution and climate forcing require better representations of air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions than we have at present. In this forum presentation, Dr. Zhen will show how satellite observations, an atmospheric chemical transport model, and statistical methods are applied to estimate the sources of major air pollutants and a greenhouse gas. She will discuss how her team improves the spatial distribution, trend, and sectoral contribution of the emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and carbon monoxide (CO). Next, she will demonstrate how source attribution is applied to identify the most effective ways to achieve healthy air quality levels. Finally, Dr. Zhen will use satellite observations to explain the trend and recent surge of global methane (CH4) concentration in 2020 and 2021. Understanding the sources and evolution of these gases is essential for developing effective air quality and climate change regulations.

About the speaker: Dr. Zhen Qu is an assistant professor in NC State’s Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Zhen is an atmospheric chemist and uses geospatial analytics to investigate how human activities are altering atmospheric composition and chemistry, and how these changes interact with climate change. She utilizes statistics, high-performance computing and satellite observations to investigate the sources, chemical formation, spatial distributions and trends of air pollutants and greenhouse gases. She develops algorithms and modeling approaches to expand our process-level understanding of man-made and natural emissions. She also applies atmospheric chemistry models to understand the sensitivity of air pollution and its exposure to the emissions of precursor gases. Zhen leads the Qu Group at NC State, a group of post-docs and students that apply data driven methods to understand air pollutants, greenhouse gases, and their interactions with climate and society.

Recording: https://youtu.be/w3v6dye_VI8