Article: A SmallSat Concept to Resolve Diurnal and Vertical Variations of Aerosols, Clouds, and Boundary Layer Height
Dr. Valentina Aquila is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Science at AU. As an atmospheric scientist, she studies aerosols, the suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in air, in the atmosphere. She primarily focuses on how stratospheric aerosols from volcanic eruptions, forest fires, and anthropogenic sources can alter Earth’s climate system.
In April 2023, she co-authored a research paper, A SmallSat Concept to Resolve Diurnal and Vertical Variations of Aerosols, Clouds, and Boundary Layer Height, outlining a SmallSat mission concept that could provide better measurements of clouds and aerosol transport. The proposed Time-varying Optical Measurements of Clouds and Aerosol Transport (TOMCAT) SmallSat mission would utilize a satellite to monitor aerosols and clouds from space, helping us better understand how these factors affect our climate and air quality.
By building upon previous measurement capabilities, Dr. Aquila and her collaborators claim that TOMCAT would deliver timely and accurate measurements of the atmosphere. The proposed mission combines active and remote sensing technologies and leverages recent technological advances in sensors and spacecraft, to address the current gap in our understanding of how clouds and aerosols vary temporally and spatially. Additionally, it is affordable, costing approximately 200 million, five times less than a typical mission of this magnitude.
This research has many benefits for society, as the TOMCAT mission would enable us to better monitor smoke from forest fires, dust from storms, and volcanic plumes. This would enable us to respond to hazards quickly and effectively, an extremely important capability as hazards become more common due to climate change.
You can read the paper here: 10.1175/BAMS-D-21-0179.1
