GeoTRACE will provide highly resolved, hourly maps of air pollution across North America, to understand the complex and sensitive processes in Earth’s atmosphere near the surface where life is sustained.
GeoTRACE will measure the most important set of atmospheric trace constituents that determine the quality of the air that we breathe, using proven measurement techniques and algorithms, from geostationary orbit. GeoTRACE advances NASA’s 20-year success in pioneering measurements of tropospheric chemistry from the Earth’s surface, aircraft, Space Shuttle, and low Earth orbit spacecraft. GeoTRACE contributes new knowledge to the scientific analysis of those results by achieving its primary science goal: the simultaneous observation of air pollutants in urban, remote continental and coastal areas to study emission, transport, and transformation of air pollutants on local and regional scales.
With NASA’s Applied Science Program and the US Group on Earth Observations (which includes NOAA and EPA), the GeoTRACE team fosters a robust, active user community that is prototyping the use of satellite data in efforts to predict, manage, and mitigate the harmful effects of air pollution. GeoTRACE responds directly to National Research Council Decadal Survey calls for Science for Societal Benefit.