Instructor: Shobha Kondragunta
NOAA has recently launched a new generation of polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites leading the scientific community into a new era of environmental monitoring and forecasting. Specific to aerosol remote sensing are Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) aboard Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (SNPP) and NOAA-20 satellites and Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) on GOES-16 and GOES-17 satellites. The spatial and temporal resolutions of aerosol products are unprecedented and when made available in near real time are very resourceful for various air quality applications. This tutorial will have the following components with a focus on urban areas: (1) introduction to basics of aerosol remote sensing and aerosol products including aerosol optical depth (AOD), true color imagery, dust imagery, and aerosol detection, (2) example case studies of various environmental events, (3) walk through of AerosolWatch website introducing near real time aerosol imagery, (4) hands on forecasting activity using AerosolWatch, and (5) information to access data. The attendees will be given handouts and material to follow the instructor.