1 00:00:02,120 --> 00:00:07,380 Good morning and welcome to the NASA hyperwall presentation this morning. 2 00:00:07,580 --> 00:00:09,720 We are going to be talking about aerosols. 3 00:00:09,760 --> 00:00:11,520 Aerosols are one of the most important 4 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:16,300 and as yet still uncertain elements of the climate system 5 00:00:16,600 --> 00:00:21,080 and the best estimates that we have 6 00:00:21,080 --> 00:00:24,840 of both the distribution and composition 7 00:00:24,840 --> 00:00:28,620 and the impact they have on clouds and climate 8 00:00:28,620 --> 00:00:34,840 and air quality come from a series of a set of measurements 9 00:00:34,840 --> 00:00:38,280 that are run through this project called AERONET. 10 00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:41,160 You are going to be hearing from Brent Holben 11 00:00:41,160 --> 00:00:43,820 who's the principal investigator for AERONET 12 00:00:43,820 --> 00:00:45,820 at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center 13 00:00:46,100 --> 00:00:47,820 and so over to Brent. (Introduction by Dr. Gavin Schmidt who is NASA’s Senior Climate Advisor) 14 00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:53,100 Hello, my name is Brent Holben. 15 00:00:53,140 --> 00:00:58,100 I'm the project scientist for the AERONET project 16 00:00:58,100 --> 00:01:00,940 and I'd like to welcome you all to Mount AERONET 17 00:01:00,940 --> 00:01:08,380 here on the top of building 33 where we provide calibration for all of our instruments 18 00:01:08,380 --> 00:01:14,740 that are in the network. AERONET is a relatively small program 19 00:01:14,740 --> 00:01:19,140 that is designed to measure aerosol concentrations 20 00:01:19,140 --> 00:01:24,860 and properties from a ground-based network of sun photometers, 21 00:01:24,860 --> 00:01:25,800 these guys here, 22 00:01:25,900 --> 00:01:31,060 for primarily for validation of satellite retrievals of aerosols. 23 00:01:31,060 --> 00:01:34,260 We know the energy at the top of the atmosphere. 24 00:01:34,260 --> 00:01:37,980 We're measuring it at the bottom of the atmosphere with these guys. 25 00:01:37,980 --> 00:01:40,980 We can actually point it at the sun. 26 00:01:40,980 --> 00:01:42,980 It has a filter wheel here that, uh, 27 00:01:42,980 --> 00:01:45,880 looks at nine spectral channels and 28 00:01:45,880 --> 00:01:51,280 we use that difference between the top and the bottom of the atmosphere 29 00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:54,980 to characterize the properties, 30 00:01:54,980 --> 00:01:59,300 as well as to measure the concentration of those aerosols. 31 00:01:59,300 --> 00:02:03,740 Also, there is a very large land surface community 32 00:02:03,740 --> 00:02:06,080 that doesn't care anything about aerosols, 33 00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:07,840 but they want to see what's going on with the 34 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:10,180 vegetation and surface characteristics. 35 00:02:10,380 --> 00:02:13,060 So, they need to remove the atmosphere. 36 00:02:13,140 --> 00:02:17,840 So, the data from this basically provides 37 00:02:17,840 --> 00:02:21,140 that information to correct the satellite imagery 38 00:02:21,140 --> 00:02:25,360 so you can get a better view of the surface characterization. 39 00:02:25,360 --> 00:02:30,180 There's also the ocean community which is interested in ocean color 40 00:02:30,180 --> 00:02:34,940 and the concentration of chlorophyll and particulates in the water. 41 00:02:34,940 --> 00:02:38,980 And aerosols contributed approximately 90% of the signals, 42 00:02:38,980 --> 00:02:43,160 so it's very important to very accurately remove t 43 00:02:43,160 --> 00:02:49,560 he aerosol signal from that satellite ocean color signal. 44 00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:54,200 All together, there are about 450 sites worldwide and 45 00:02:54,200 --> 00:02:56,140 they're very well distributed. 46 00:02:56,140 --> 00:02:59,120 In all kinds of ecosystems 47 00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:02,860 and all kinds of aerosol environments. 48 00:03:02,860 --> 00:03:06,380 And as satellites come and go, 49 00:03:06,380 --> 00:03:12,080 this project is simple enough and robust enough 50 00:03:12,080 --> 00:03:16,640 that it keeps producing more and more information 51 00:03:16,640 --> 00:03:22,540 at a higher and higher data rate, at a higher and higher distribution. 52 00:03:22,540 --> 00:03:27,840 So, I suspect that in the long term, we're going to grow 53 00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:32,360 to several thousand instruments. And because 54 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:34,960 it's a relatively inexpensive program, 55 00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:41,560 I think that the future bodes very well for providing more data 56 00:03:41,560 --> 00:03:45,620 for not just NASA, but the entire globe. 57 00:03:50,160 --> 00:03:53,120 Okay I'm down for Mt. AERONET now. 58 00:03:55,020 --> 00:03:55,900 I'd like to make a point before we move forward. 59 00:03:56,460 --> 00:03:58,620 Consider AERONET measurements this way, 60 00:03:59,180 --> 00:04:01,300 humans tend to look horizontally. 61 00:04:01,300 --> 00:04:03,300 We appreciate visibility, 62 00:04:03,300 --> 00:04:05,300 and we have a notion of what haze is, 63 00:04:05,300 --> 00:04:08,820 but it's really transmissivity of the atmosphere. 64 00:04:08,820 --> 00:04:10,820 AERONET looks up through the atmosphere 65 00:04:14,480 --> 00:04:16,000 to measure a similar transmissivity parameter. 66 00:04:16,300 --> 00:04:17,340 AERONET has been growing and 67 00:04:19,220 --> 00:04:20,920 improving for 28 years, and in 2021, 68 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:24,240 this year approximately 500 ground stations 69 00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:26,240 have contributed to our database. 70 00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:29,020 It's effectively an aerosol climatology. 71 00:04:29,020 --> 00:04:32,880 The map in the upper left shows 72 00:04:32,880 --> 00:04:34,880 the contributing sites this year. 73 00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:37,620 This is a Federated network with 74 00:04:37,620 --> 00:04:40,540 partner collaborations in all continents, 75 00:04:40,540 --> 00:04:42,540 97 countries and territories. 76 00:04:42,540 --> 00:04:45,420 The network functions because 77 00:04:45,420 --> 00:04:48,680 scientists and technicians working in Partnership 78 00:04:50,600 --> 00:04:52,340 share their data in a public domain database 79 00:04:52,340 --> 00:04:53,260 for the community. 80 00:04:53,740 --> 00:04:56,560 It takes Global Village to make this work. 81 00:04:56,560 --> 00:04:56,640 Okay, but still, why does NASA It takes Global Village to make this work. 82 00:04:56,640 --> 00:05:00,520 Okay, but still, why does NASA 83 00:05:00,520 --> 00:05:02,520 or anybody need AERONET? 84 00:05:02,520 --> 00:05:04,520 Why ask AERONET? 85 00:05:04,520 --> 00:05:07,320 Let's go to the satellite and models. 86 00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:12,420 My favorite animation, GMAO. 87 00:05:12,540 --> 00:05:14,420 They do everything. 88 00:05:14,420 --> 00:05:16,860 They ingest the satellite data, 89 00:05:16,860 --> 00:05:18,860 in this case MODIS, 90 00:05:18,860 --> 00:05:21,780 combine it with meteorology sources, 91 00:05:21,780 --> 00:05:24,260 microphysics of the aerosols. 92 00:05:24,260 --> 00:05:27,040 Then it transports and modifies aerosols 93 00:05:27,080 --> 00:05:30,320 around the planet as a very realistic representation 94 00:05:30,340 --> 00:05:32,320 of the aerosol environment. 95 00:05:32,320 --> 00:05:34,700 Note, dust blowing off West Africa 96 00:05:34,700 --> 00:05:36,700 and transported across the Atlantic. 97 00:05:36,700 --> 00:05:40,400 Smoke from wildfires in the US and Canada. 98 00:05:40,400 --> 00:05:44,820 Sea salt, all modified by meteorology and physics 99 00:05:44,820 --> 00:05:46,820 embedded in the code and nudged by 100 00:05:46,820 --> 00:05:48,820 new data from the satellites. 101 00:05:48,820 --> 00:05:52,260 We will see an additional clip showing transport later. 102 00:05:52,660 --> 00:05:57,080 The question is how accurate are the data 103 00:05:57,080 --> 00:05:59,620 from the satellites and model simulations? 104 00:05:59,620 --> 00:06:02,540 We need error bars put on the retrievals, 105 00:06:02,540 --> 00:06:04,460 so how do we do that? 106 00:06:04,460 --> 00:06:04,540 Let's go to the next slide. so how do we do that? 107 00:06:04,540 --> 00:06:07,560 Let's go to the next slide. 108 00:06:07,560 --> 00:06:10,860 We need to go to where the aerosols are. 109 00:06:10,860 --> 00:06:12,860 We need to kind of get dirty. 110 00:06:12,860 --> 00:06:16,760 The upper left-hand Corner shows an 111 00:06:16,760 --> 00:06:18,760 active fire in the Forest Clearing. 112 00:06:18,760 --> 00:06:20,760 It’s man made. 113 00:06:21,100 --> 00:06:25,180 Notice the dark smoke plume generating a cumulous cloud. 114 00:06:25,920 --> 00:06:32,400 Clearly a chaotic and a massive aerosol cloud interaction. 115 00:06:32,400 --> 00:06:34,400 It is very difficult to measure. 116 00:06:34,400 --> 00:06:37,340 The very hot fire the panel below, 117 00:06:37,340 --> 00:06:39,340 well I don't want to get in that, 118 00:06:39,340 --> 00:06:42,280 but some people do, to get the ground truth data. 119 00:06:42,540 --> 00:06:47,240 We send planes in on challenging sampling missions 120 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:51,580 to measure and ultimately understand the processes for the models. 121 00:06:51,580 --> 00:06:56,900 How about the picture of the container ship idling in a harbor on a hazy afternoon – 122 00:06:56,900 --> 00:06:59,640 fossil-fuel aerosols. 123 00:06:59,640 --> 00:07:04,660 Then, there's the dust storm about to overtake suburbia. 124 00:07:05,640 --> 00:07:11,080 The melon vendor is sampling dust with his eyes and his nose and skin, 125 00:07:11,080 --> 00:07:14,820 not exactly scientific, but he knows what it is. 126 00:07:14,820 --> 00:07:19,420 It works for him. AERONET takes easy street. 127 00:07:19,420 --> 00:07:23,840 Robots sit and wait for aerosols to come to them. 128 00:07:23,840 --> 00:07:25,320 Measurements every five minutes. 129 00:07:25,320 --> 00:07:28,960 No weekends off. No holidays allowed - 24/7. 130 00:07:29,420 --> 00:07:32,740 Let’s go on a global tour of AERONET. 131 00:07:34,660 --> 00:07:36,440 Here we are in Europe. 132 00:07:36,440 --> 00:07:38,880 It is not just NASA doing AERONET. 133 00:07:38,880 --> 00:07:41,840 Our calibration partners in Lille and Valladolid 134 00:07:41,840 --> 00:07:43,840 maintain the European Network 135 00:07:44,800 --> 00:07:47,800 and the result has been a great gift to the aerosol community. 136 00:07:48,060 --> 00:07:52,760 Check out the map - the density of observations often shows connectivity 137 00:07:52,900 --> 00:07:57,080 between the adjacent instruments. The validation scientists, 138 00:07:57,160 --> 00:08:03,540 we have statistics. The breadth of the science sites from Iceland to Poland, 139 00:08:03,540 --> 00:08:06,540 Scandinavia to the Iberian Peninsula, 140 00:08:06,620 --> 00:08:11,340 Turkey to Glasgow. UKMET has one here. 141 00:08:11,340 --> 00:08:16,780 Rural, urban, over water, mountains - 142 00:08:16,780 --> 00:08:22,280 that diversity and density of the Relentless routine observations 143 00:08:22,280 --> 00:08:24,280 make AERONET Europe exceptional! 144 00:08:24,280 --> 00:08:26,280 You have aerosol transport. 145 00:08:26,800 --> 00:08:28,940 Check out the GMAO simulation! 146 00:08:28,940 --> 00:08:31,280 We must credit the scientists, 147 00:08:31,280 --> 00:08:34,240 the governmental and University institutions 148 00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:37,440 that have recognized the importance of these measurements. 149 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:40,920 Okay, let’s do something a little different. 150 00:08:40,920 --> 00:08:44,980 Let's transport ourselves to Southeast Asia and warm up. 151 00:08:44,980 --> 00:08:50,280 Southeast Asia - another GMAO simulation – 152 00:08:50,280 --> 00:08:52,000 zoomed into southeast Asia. 153 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:55,560 Note that indonesian fires light up in September 154 00:08:55,560 --> 00:09:00,640 on the satellite image shows thousands of hotspots likely ag fires 155 00:09:00,640 --> 00:09:04,300 in Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar in March and April. 156 00:09:04,940 --> 00:09:10,480 Aerosols don't respect country boundary, country regulations, 157 00:09:10,680 --> 00:09:13,620 and are transported to the East! 158 00:09:13,620 --> 00:09:18,320 Seven Seas is a long-running bootstrap international program 159 00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:23,380 established by host country scientists in 7 Southeast Asian countries. 160 00:09:23,380 --> 00:09:28,480 The mission - characterize aerosol meteorological interactions across 161 00:09:28,480 --> 00:09:34,140 southeast Asia and establish a multinational collaborative 162 00:09:34,140 --> 00:09:38,960 database of regional ground-based observations. 163 00:09:38,960 --> 00:09:41,240 Provide space space retrieval algorithms 164 00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:43,740 and modeling datasets and 165 00:09:44,540 --> 00:09:47,700 AERONET is the validation anchor in all of this. 166 00:09:49,540 --> 00:09:57,760 Collaboration continues. The network continues to expand adding to our regional aerosol climatology. 167 00:09:59,560 --> 00:10:10,780 Ladies and gentlemen, I give you topography. Beautiful Japanese Alps - spectacular, but topography messes up our simple view of the Earth. 168 00:10:10,780 --> 00:10:24,320 It is difficult to do remote sensing of any type in steep Mountainous settings. Inversions trap Aerosols upslope, and downslope winds make a mockery of our global models. 169 00:11:45,160 --> 00:11:49,480 The Amazon - everybody knows what's going on in the Amazon. 170 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:51,480 And everybody is an expert. 171 00:11:51,960 --> 00:11:55,380 Forest conversion, land cover change. 172 00:11:55,380 --> 00:11:57,380 Look at the animation – 173 00:11:57,440 --> 00:12:01,600 burning monoculture in a river of smoke pours south. 174 00:12:01,600 --> 00:12:06,440 The issues are climate affects, ecosystem function, 175 00:12:06,440 --> 00:12:09,880 and health effects on 20 million people that live in the Amazon. 176 00:12:10,780 --> 00:12:14,960 AERONET has been measuring in the Amazon since 1992. 177 00:12:14,960 --> 00:12:19,180 First with Brazilian space agency (aeb), 178 00:12:19,180 --> 00:12:21,520 and later with University of San Paulo, 179 00:12:21,520 --> 00:12:24,280 and other agencies and university scientists. 180 00:12:25,060 --> 00:12:27,740 Aerosol climatology is emerging and 181 00:12:27,740 --> 00:12:30,820 note the annual 3 month pulse. 182 00:12:30,820 --> 00:12:34,320 Year-by-year AERONET sites in 183 00:12:34,320 --> 00:12:38,340 Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay 184 00:12:38,340 --> 00:12:42,140 capture those pulses as they exit over the South Atlantic. 185 00:12:42,140 --> 00:12:45,360 AERONET further compliments detailed 186 00:12:45,400 --> 00:12:47,700 meteorological in situ measurements at the 187 00:12:47,700 --> 00:12:51,340 300 m ATTO tower near Manaus 188 00:12:51,340 --> 00:12:54,820 to chronicle the effects of a changing atmosphere 189 00:12:54,920 --> 00:12:57,420 on a pristine part of the Amazon basin. 190 00:12:59,420 --> 00:13:00,300 Next slide please. 191 00:13:00,300 --> 00:13:05,160 Africa looms large in every facet of the earth's climate system, 192 00:13:05,200 --> 00:13:10,500 and for aerosols it is easily depicted in the GMAO animation. 193 00:13:10,600 --> 00:13:13,900 We know that vast quantities of mineral dust are transported 194 00:13:13,900 --> 00:13:16,980 over the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Caribbean, 195 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:21,680 South America, and Europe. AERONET is there to spot check 196 00:13:21,680 --> 00:13:23,680 the satellites and models. 197 00:13:23,680 --> 00:13:26,120 We are there in the Sahara, and Sahel, 198 00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:28,320 including islands surrounding the continent. 199 00:13:28,320 --> 00:13:32,060 Likewise, the largest area of biomass burning 200 00:13:32,060 --> 00:13:36,820 on the planet occur every year in a north to south migration 201 00:13:36,820 --> 00:13:39,100 of anthropogenic biomass burning. 202 00:13:39,100 --> 00:13:41,460 Check out the animation on the upper right. 203 00:13:41,920 --> 00:13:46,060 AERONET began observations in Zambia in 1997 204 00:13:46,060 --> 00:13:51,380 and greatly expanded observations during the 1990s during 205 00:13:51,380 --> 00:13:55,380 NASA and University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Safari 2000 206 00:13:55,380 --> 00:13:59,680 airborne campaign to understand the processes and magnitude 207 00:13:59,680 --> 00:14:05,020 of the burning. That ushered in the Eos era of validation 208 00:14:05,020 --> 00:14:10,800 for the Terra satellite. Antonio Queface a young graduate student at Wits 209 00:14:10,800 --> 00:14:14,480 volunteered to man an AERONET site in southern Mozambique, 210 00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:17,220 his home country for the campaign. 211 00:14:17,220 --> 00:14:21,700 Today, he is a professor of physics at University 212 00:14:21,700 --> 00:14:24,160 and is leading his students in measurements and 213 00:14:24,160 --> 00:14:26,160 assessments of AERONET data. 214 00:14:26,160 --> 00:14:28,300 Last slide please. 215 00:14:29,620 --> 00:14:31,820 There are five hundred stories, and 216 00:14:31,820 --> 00:14:34,080 stories within stories to be told. 217 00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:36,080 I’ve nearly run out of time. 218 00:14:36,080 --> 00:14:39,520 I'd like to show you two historic science results 219 00:14:39,520 --> 00:14:40,620 from AERONET. 220 00:14:40,740 --> 00:14:43,540 The upper left-hand panel is a figure showing 221 00:14:43,540 --> 00:14:47,040 the first published MODIS/Terra versus AERONET 222 00:14:47,040 --> 00:14:49,880 comparisons over land and water. 223 00:14:50,240 --> 00:14:54,940 Validation with Statistics, and it was good! 224 00:14:54,940 --> 00:14:57,940 This analysis is now routine. 225 00:14:57,940 --> 00:15:03,060 The upper right is a published figure showing the AERONET climate parameter. 226 00:15:03,060 --> 00:15:07,300 Single scattering albedo for 3 aerosol types. 227 00:15:07,300 --> 00:15:10,960 All values above the blue line which we superimposed 228 00:15:10,960 --> 00:15:15,500 on the figure would contribute to cooling the atmosphere 229 00:15:15,500 --> 00:15:20,040 and those below the red line would likely warm the atmosphere. 230 00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:26,140 In conclusion, we have aerosol climatology, validation and 231 00:15:26,140 --> 00:15:29,340 research owing to the hard work and dedication of the 232 00:15:29,340 --> 00:15:31,540 science community working together. 233 00:15:31,540 --> 00:15:36,240 On behalf of the research and technical staff at Goddard, 234 00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:40,880 Lille, Valladolid, Boulder, and Beijing, 235 00:15:40,880 --> 00:15:45,040 and the calibration sites at Mauna Loa and Izaña, 236 00:15:45,040 --> 00:15:49,880 and the hundreds of scientists and technicians at 500 sites 237 00:15:49,880 --> 00:15:51,880 in 97 countries and territories, 238 00:15:52,400 --> 00:15:55,480 we wish COP26 every success. 239 00:15:55,480 --> 00:15:59,580 Remember, if you're not sure ask AERONET. 240 00:15:59,840 --> 00:16:01,500 thank you