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MOPITT was successfully launched on December 18 1999, onboard the Terra satellite, the flagship of NASA's EOS (Earth Observing System) program. ![]() December 18 HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOPITT ! |
MOPITT Launch MOPITT instrument Principles of operation CO: DATA and Publications Intercontinental CO transport
Trends
CO over megacities based on MOPITT observations from space
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Carbon monoxide
(CO) is an important gas to the atmospheric chemistry mainly due to
its contribution to the ozone (O3) and hydroxyl radicals (OH). CO is
also a important tracer of biomass burning, anthropogenic pollution
and provide valuable information on dynamical
properties of the atmosphere. As a result, there is indeed an
effective interest in understanding the general features of CO, the
global distribution, its variability and trends. The MOPITT (Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere) instrument was launched on NASA’s Terra Flagship Earth Observing System (EOS) satellite on December 18th, 1999 and has made measurements of carbon monoxide in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) on a global basis almost continuously for the twenty (20) years since then. Terra is flying in a polar-sun-synchronous orbit (altitude 750Km) with equator crossing at 10:30 UT. MOPITT with its cross-track scan (swath of 700Km) can do an almost complete coverage of the Earth’s surface in about 3 days (individual pixels cover 22KmX22Km). On October 6, 2018 Terra completed 100,000 orbits around Earth. The figure below shows the global monthly averaged of CO total column (units 10^18 mol/cm^3), retrieved during day, on 1X1 grid for September 2017, so 19 years after launch !
The MOPITT instrument was designed by Dr. Jim Drummond and the MOPITT team at the University of Toronto. The MOPITT instrument was build by COM DEV of Cambridge Ontario and ABB BOMEM, Quebec City, Quebec; CANADA The processing of MOPITT data is carried out by the MOPITT support team at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO, US The instrument control and maintenace is carred out by MOPITT team at the Universy of Toronto, CANADA
The MOPITT project is funded by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The
MOPITT data analysis is funded by the National Sciences and
Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, and the Canadian
Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Science (CFCAS). |