Satellite data to evaluate AERMOD

Goal

Our goal is to develop methods to evaluate the performance of the EPA’s regulatory air dispersion model, AERMOD, with NASA’s air pollution monitoring instrument, TEMPO.  


Objectives

  • Run AERMOD on a collection of power plants across the United States. 

  • Estimate vertical column density of NO2 from AERMOD receptors to match satellite-derived NO2 values. 

  • Process TEMPO data across the corresponding geographic and time regions for the AERMOD runs.

  •  Analyze alignment of AERMOD-derived NO2 values with TEMPO-derived NO2 values across spatial and temporal domains. 


Funding Partner:

Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) - Former; NASA-HAQAST (Current)

Timeline:

2025-Present

Tools/Data:

AERMOD, TEMPO, Python, USGS NLCD Data, NOAA NWS Data, Clean Air Markets Program Database (CAMPD)

Core Team Members:

Tracey Holloway, Monica Harkey, Xinran Wu, Annelies Quinton, Daniel Friedland