Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

In the last few decades we have seen great advances in atmospheric science that have been made possible by new satellite instruments.  These enable global measurements of a high-altitude region of the atmosphere that is important for climate, called the stratosphere, and the lower altitude troposphere, which is critical for our air quality. Canada has played a key role in these advances through the operation of the OSIRIS satellite instrument. The projects funded by this proposal make further use of the OSIRIS measurements to study long-term trends in the stratosphere. We also propose to continue to develop the technology for new satellite instrumentation for measuring the stratosphere, and analyze future satellite measurements of air quality in the troposphere. OSIRIS is one of the few satellite instruments that can measure stratospheric aerosol. These tiny droplets, which can last in the stratosphere for many years, are caused in part by volcanic eruptions and by scattering sunlight away from the Earth, cool the planet. We will work with OSIRIS data and new NASA satellite measurements to improve the long-term record of global distributions of aerosol and extend it into the future. This time series is an important input into the climate modelling studies that need to account for the cooling effects of these aerosol particles. We will also study satellite measurements of reactive nitrogen, which plays an important role in atmosphere chemistry of the stratosphere, to understand long-term evolution and trends that are linked to changes in climate. Using the knowledge we gain by studying satellite measurements, we are developing new prototype instruments for future satellite missions to measure aerosol and water vapor. We have recently tested these instruments on stratospheric balloons and high-altitude aircraft and plan future campaigns targeting scientific observations of aerosols, atmospheric transport, and structure. This proposal provides support for us to continue the testing and scientific analysis of these measurements. An important impact of this project will be a greatly increased readiness level for future Canadian space technology with the potential to make key advances in atmospheric science, along with advancement in the knowledge of how to best utilize and understand new measurements of the atmosphere. Finally, we plan to improve the data quality obtained from future geostationary air quality satellite missions. The standard ways of analyzing these measurements is not ideal for the steep angles required to view Canada from geostationary orbit. Additionally, snow and ice cover, often impacting key Canadian locations such as the oil sands, represents a challenge that can impact retrieved data quality. In this work, we propose to leverage our experience to improve this data quality by developing customized retrieval algorithms for Canadian measurements, specially tuned to handle the steep angles and snowy conditions.