NOAA, NASA spearheading massive air quality research campaign this summer

A schematic of the AGES+ study components. Credit: NOAA

Scientists from NOAA, NASA and 21 universities from three countries are deploying state-of-the-art instruments in multiple, coordinated research campaigns this month to investigate how air pollution sources have shifted over recent decades.

Since the 1970s, U.S. scientists and environmental regulators made significant strides in reducing air pollution by cleaning up tailpipe and smokestack emissions. Yet levels of two of the most harmful types of pollution, ground-level ozone and fine particulates, have decreased only modestly in recent years. Both still contribute to the premature deaths of more than 100,000 Americans every year. 

“This is an unprecedented scientific investigation — in scope, scale and sophistication — of an ongoing public health threat that kills people every year,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, PhD. “No one agency or university could do anything like this alone.”