Two NASA aircraft yesterday flew over Taiwan to collect air quality samples as part of a joint study with countries across the Asia-Pacific region, the Ministry of Environment said.
The four-hour mission would generate a 3D map of air pollution in central and southern Taiwan, the ministry wrote in a news release published hours before the survey.
Open-source flight trackers show that the NASA DC-8 and Gulfstream III took off from the Philippines and circled cities in Taiwan before landing in South Korea.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, Taipei Times
Ministry personnel joined a group of 40 researchers from 20 academic institutions in Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia and the US, among other participating countries, it said.
The object of the mission is to analyze the effect of terrain and atmospheric circulation on pollutant distributions, utilizing high-resolution data the aircraft are to glean in the Kaohsiung-Pingtung region, the ministry said.
This project represents a significant advance in the nation’s air pollution research from ground-based observations to a system that makes use of aerial samples, as well as the ministry’s first large-scale study since its administrative upgrade last year, it said.
The pair of US aircraft carried advanced instruments capable of measuring in real time the density and spread of pollutants, including volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and aerosols, the ministry said.
Two advanced ground-based observation stations stemming from a collaboration between Taiwan and NASA, and one vertical spectrometer station of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are among the instruments used to conduct the research, the ministry said.
The project also made use of other ground-based observation stations in the nation, uncrewed aerial vehicles, pulse Doppler radar, lidar, balloons, solar luminosity sensors and satellites, it said.
These instruments allow scientists to probe the distribution, physics and chemical composition of pollutants, the ministry said.
Taiwanese scientists and government personnel look forward to working with NASA to study the collected data, which would facilitate the ministry’s efforts to refine its air pollution reduction strategy, it said.
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