A recent study published in the journal Atmospheric Environment describes how data from three NASA instruments (the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS; the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer, MISR; and the Ozone Measuring Instrument, OMI) were used to analyze air quality in the city of Athens during the outbreak of severe fires in Greece in 2007. The study was a collaboration between Harvard School of Public Health scientist Yang Liu (now at Emory University), Ralph Kahn (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), and Greek scientists Archontoula Chaloulakou (School of Chemical Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens), and Petros Koutrakis (Harvard School of Public Health).
MODIS data for this study were acquired from MODAPS, the MODIS Adaptive Processing System archive. MISR data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center (LaRC ASDC). The Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) was the source of the OMI data, which were used to distinguish the different aerosol types contributing to the miasmic mixture of pollution pervading the city of Athens.
This research is described in detail in the article "Smoke Over Athens", by Natasha Vizcarra, published on the NASA Earth System Science Data and Services Web site, also known as "NASA DAACs".
Reference: Liu, Y., R. Kahn, A. Chaloulakou, and P. Koutrakis. 2009. Analysis of the impact of the forest fires in August 2007 on air quality of Athens using multi-sensor aerosol remote sensing data, meteorology, and surface observations. Atmospheric Environment, doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2009.04.010.
Atmos Composition
