Identification

Title

Carbon monoxide pollution from cities and urban areas observed by the Terra/MOPITT mission

Abstract

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a key species for tracking pollution plumes. The Measurement Of Pollution in The Troposphere (MOPITT) mission onboard the Terra satellite has already provided 7.5 years of CO atmospheric concentration measurements around the globe. Limited sensitivity to the boundary layer is well known to be a weakness of nadir looking thermal infrared sounders. This paper investigates the possibility of using the MOPITT surface measurements to detect CO emitted by cities and urban centers. By selecting the data and averaging them over long time periods, we demonstrate that the CO pollution arising from the large cities and urban areas can be distinguished from the background transported pollution. The more favorable observations are obtained during daytime and at locations where the thermal contrast (temperature gradient) between the surface and lower atmosphere is significant.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d78p60q6

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2008-02-15T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

An edited version of this paper was published by AGU. Copyright 2008 American Geophysical Union.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-07-17T15:59:39.624500

Metadata language

eng; USA