TAU team uses NASA satellites to measure pollution hovering
over world's megacities
The thickest layers of global smog — caused by traffic,
industry, and natural minerals, among other factors — are found over the
world's megacities. But getting an accurate measurement of pollution is no easy
task. On-the-ground monitoring stations do not always provide the most accurate
picture — monitoring stations depend heavily on local positioning and some
cities put stations in urban centers, while others build on the edge of a city.
Now Prof. Pinhas Alpert of Tel Aviv University's Department
of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences and head of the Porter School of
Environmental Studies, with graduate student Olga Shvainshteinand and Dr. Pavel
Kishcha, is turning to three of NASA's high-tech satellites for a comprehensive
view of pollutants in the atmosphere. Using eight years' worth of data
collected by the satellites, the researchers tracked pollution trends for 189
megacities — metropolitan hotspots where the population exceeds 2 million. 58
of these megacities, including New York City, Tokyo, and Mumbai, have
populations that exceed 5 million.