New era of air quality monitoring from space: Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS)

The Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS) is scheduled for launch in February 2020 to monitor air quality (AQ) at an unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution from a geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) for the first time. With the development of UV-visible spectrometers at sub-nm spectral resolution and sophisticated retrieval algorithms, estimates of the column amounts of atmospheric pollutants (O-3, NO2, SO2, HCHO, CHOCHO, and aerosols) can be obtained. To date, all the UV-visible satellite missions monitoring air quality have been in low Earth orbit (LEO), allowing one to two observations per day. With UV-visible instruments on GEO platforms, the diurnal variations of these pollutants can now be determined. Details of the GEMS mission are presented, including instrumentation, scientific algorithms, predicted performance, and applications for air quality forecasts through data assimilation. GEMS will be on board the Geostationary Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite 2 (GEO-KOMPSAT-2) satellite series, which also hosts the Advanced Meteorological Imager (AMI) and Geostationary Ocean Color Imager 2 (GOCI-2). These three instruments will provide synergistic science products to better understand air quality, meteorology, the long-range transport of air pollutants, emission source distributions, and chemical processes. Faster sampling rates at higher spatial resolution will increase the probability of finding cloud-free pixels, leading to more observations of aerosols and trace gases than is possible from LEO. GEMS will be joined by NASA's Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) and ESA's Sentinel-4 to form a GEO AQ satellite constellation in early 2020s, coordinated by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS).

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Author Kim, Jhoon
Jeong, Ukkyo
Ahn, Myoung-Hwan
Kim, Jae H.
Park, Rokjin J.
Lee, Hanlim
Song, Chul Han
Choi, Yong-Sang
Lee, Kwon-Ho
Yoo, Jung-Moon
Jeong, Myeong-Jae
Park, Seon Ki
Lee, Kwang-Mog
Song, Chang-Keun
Kim, Sang-Woo
Kim, Young Joon
Kim, Si-Wan
Kim, Mijin
Go, Sujung
Liu, Xiong
Chance, Kelly
Chan Miller, Christopher
Al-Saadi, Jay
Veihelmann, Ben
Bhartia, Pawan K.
Torres, Omar
Abad, Gonzalo González
Haffner, David P.
Ko, Dai Ho
Lee, Seung Hoon
Woo, Jung-Hun
Chong, Heesung
Park, Sang Seo
Nicks, Dennis
Choi, Won Jun
Moon, Kyung-Jung
Cho, Ara
Yoon, Jongmin
Kim, Sang-kyun
Hong, Hyunkee
Lee, Kyunghwa
Lee, Hana
Lee, Seoyoung
Choi, Myungje
Veefkind, Pepijn
Levelt, Pieternel F.
Edwards, David P.
Kang, Mina
Eo, Mijin
Bak, Juseon
Baek, Kanghyun
Kwon, Hyeong-Ahn
Yang, Jiwon
Park, Junsung
Han, Kyung Man
Kim, Bo-Ram
Shin, Hee-Woo
Choi, Haklim
Lee, Ebony
Chong, Jihyo
Cha, Yesol
Koo, Ja-Ho
Irie, Hitoshi
Hayashida, Sachiko
Kasai, Yasko
Kanaya, Yugo
Liu, Cheng
Lin, Jintai
Crawford, James H.
Carmichael, Gregory R.
Newchurch, Michael J.
Lefer, Barry L.
Herman, Jay R.
Swap, Robert J.
Lau, Alexis K. H.
Kurosu, Thomas P.
Jaross, Glen
Ahlers, Berit
Dobber, Marcel
McElroy, C. Thomas
Choi, Yunsoo
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2020-01-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:35:02.902403
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:23319
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Kim, Jhoon, Jeong, Ukkyo, Ahn, Myoung-Hwan, Kim, Jae H., Park, Rokjin J., Lee, Hanlim, Song, Chul Han, Choi, Yong-Sang, Lee, Kwon-Ho, Yoo, Jung-Moon, Jeong, Myeong-Jae, Park, Seon Ki, Lee, Kwang-Mog, Song, Chang-Keun, Kim, Sang-Woo, Kim, Young Joon, Kim, Si-Wan, Kim, Mijin, Go, Sujung, Liu, Xiong, Chance, Kelly, Chan Miller, Christopher, Al-Saadi, Jay, Veihelmann, Ben, Bhartia, Pawan K., Torres, Omar, Abad, Gonzalo González, Haffner, David P., Ko, Dai Ho, Lee, Seung Hoon, Woo, Jung-Hun, Chong, Heesung, Park, Sang Seo, Nicks, Dennis, Choi, Won Jun, Moon, Kyung-Jung, Cho, Ara, Yoon, Jongmin, Kim, Sang-kyun, Hong, Hyunkee, Lee, Kyunghwa, Lee, Hana, Lee, Seoyoung, Choi, Myungje, Veefkind, Pepijn, Levelt, Pieternel F., Edwards, David P., Kang, Mina, Eo, Mijin, Bak, Juseon, Baek, Kanghyun, Kwon, Hyeong-Ahn, Yang, Jiwon, Park, Junsung, Han, Kyung Man, Kim, Bo-Ram, Shin, Hee-Woo, Choi, Haklim, Lee, Ebony, Chong, Jihyo, Cha, Yesol, Koo, Ja-Ho, Irie, Hitoshi, Hayashida, Sachiko, Kasai, Yasko, Kanaya, Yugo, Liu, Cheng, Lin, Jintai, Crawford, James H., Carmichael, Gregory R., Newchurch, Michael J., Lefer, Barry L., Herman, Jay R., Swap, Robert J., Lau, Alexis K. H., Kurosu, Thomas P., Jaross, Glen, Ahlers, Berit, Dobber, Marcel, McElroy, C. Thomas, Choi, Yunsoo. (2020). New era of air quality monitoring from space: Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS). UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7sj1pt6. Accessed 25 June 2025.

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