Quantification of Agricultural Ammonia Emissions by Satellite and Airborne Hyperspectral Thermal-Infrared Spectrometry

David M. Tratt, The Aerospace Corporation, dtratt@aero.org (Presenter)
Jeffrey L. Hall, The Aerospace Corporation, jeffrey.l.hall@aero.org
Clement S. Chang, The Aerospace Corporation, clement.s.chang@aero.org
Jun Qian, The Aerospace Corporation, jun.qian@aero.org
Lieven Clarisse, Université Libre de Bruxelles, lclariss@ulb.ac.be
Martin Van Damme, Université Libre de Bruxelles, mvdamme1@ulb.ac.be
Cathy Clerbaux, Université Libre de Bruxelles, cclerbau@ulb.ac.be
Daniel Hurtmans, Université Libre de Bruxelles, dhurtma@ulb.ac.be
Pierre-François Coheur, Université Libre de Bruxelles, pfcoheur@ulb.ac.be

We demonstrate the utility of a new airborne sensor with the requisite spatial, spectral, and radiometric resolution to characterize “point” sources of ammonia emission. Flights were conducted over California’s San Joaquin Valley, which is a region of intensive agriculture and animal husbandry that has been identified as one of the single largest sources of atmospheric free ammonia worldwide. Airborne data acquisition operations were coordinated with daytime overpasses of the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) aboard the European Space Agency’s MetOp-A platform. IASI is capable of measuring total columns of ammonia and the primary purpose of this investigation was to compare and validate the IASI ammonia product against high-spatial-resolution airborne retrievals acquired contemporaneously over the same footprint. The ~12-km pixel size of the IASI satellite measurements cannot resolve the local-scale variability of ammonia abundance and consequently cannot characterize the often compact source emissions. The nominal 2-m pixel size of the airborne data revealed variability of ammonia concentration at several different scales within the IASI footprint. At this pixel size, well-defined plumes issuing from individual dairy facilities could be imaged and their dispersion characteristics resolved. Retrieved ammonia concentrations in excess of 50 ppb were inferred for some of the strongest discrete plumes.

Presentation: 2011_Poster_Tratt_1b_5.pdf (1345k)

Presentation Type:  Poster

Session:  Coupled Processes at Land-Atmosphere-Ocean Interfaces   (Mon 4:00 PM)

Associated Project(s): 

• Related Activity

Poster Location ID: 1b