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World's biggest flying lab comes to Asia on air pollution mission
NASA has kicked off a series ofmarathon flights in Asia with the world's biggest flying laboratory, in anambitious mission to improve the models that help to forecast and fight airpollution.
Millions of deaths each year are linked to air pollution, and improving theability to identify its sources and behaviour can lead to more accuratewarning systems for the public.
Starting this week in the Philippines, the US agency's DC-8 is flying for upto eight hours at a time -- sometimes just 15 metres (50 feet) from theground -- to swoop up air particles for study, reports BSS.
"We can provide direct measurements of how much pollution is coming fromdifferent sources. And that's one of the primary inputs to the air qualityforecasting models," NASA's Barry Lefer told reporters Thursday at ClarkInternational Airport, around 80 km (50 miles) north of Manila.
Air quality forecasting relies on readings from ground stations as well assatellites, but both methods are limited in their ability to see howpollutants are spread in the air, according to experts.
Readings from aircraft can help fill that gap, improve the interpretation ofsatellite data, and lead to more accurate models.
Combining the air, space and ground readings is necessary for policies"regarding public health, regarding industrial compliance, regarding...ecosystem preservation and conservation", said Maria Antonia Loyzaga,secretary of the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Packed with dozens of highly sensitive instruments, the NASA lab has flowntwice so far this week in a figure-eight pattern over some of the mostdensely populated areas of the Philippines, including the capital region,according to the tracking site FlightAware.
It has been accompanied by a smaller NASA Gulfstream jet whose instrumentscan create three-dimensional maps of pollutants in the air.
In the coming weeks, the jets will also conduct research flights over SouthKorea, Malaysia and Thailand.
Results from the study will be shared with the public after a year, NASAprogramme officials said.
The project, named ASIA-AQ, is a collaboration between the US agency andgovernments in a region with some of the highest air pollution-linked deathrates in the world.
Manila Observatory scientist Maria Cambaliza told reporters Thursday thatabout a third of global air pollution-linked deaths are recorded in Asia.
In the Philippines, she added, there are 100 such deaths per 100,000 people.