BOULDER, Colo — There's no question that air quality impacts people's day-to-day lives and their long-term health. Understanding and being able to forecast unhealthy air is critical to protecting health.
That's where researchers like Dr. Rebecca Hornbrook come in.
Hornbrook is a project scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and one of the many researchers involved in a high-altitude air-quality study onboard a specially equipped NASA DC-8 research aircraft.
"Basically a commercial airliner that is full of instrumentation," she called it.
Those instruments measure all sorts of chemicals in the atmosphere. The researchers then compare that data with air-quality information gathered from space.
"We can tie our measurements to what the satellites are seeing," Hornbrook said. "So that we can create a better picture of exactly what's causing poor air quality in these areas."
Understanding what is causing the poor air quality in certain areas can help researchers better combat climate change.
"A lot of the chemicals that we measure that impact air quality also impacts climate," Hornbrook said. "So it's really important not just to understand what's causing ozone, what's causing bad air quality and poor air quality in these places, but also what's contributing to long-term climate change."
The researchers just wrapped up a study of the air over Manila in the Philippines. The next stops include Seoul, South Korea, and Bangkok, Thailand.
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