Background
The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring Pollution (TEMPO) mission, launched in April 2023, provides key air quality measurements of trace gas constituents over North America from a geostationary orbit. These observations are important to the air quality forecasting and modeling communities.
Survey respondents requested that a subset of the currently planned TEMPO products be expedited to near real-time (NRT) availability to assist in forecasting and modeling efforts. Science-quality products, which are more accurate than NRT products, but take additional time to produce, for trace gas measurements are also of interest to support long-term analysis.
Status
Currently in Development, but Some Data are Available Now
Hourly NRT air quality products for nitrogen dioxide (NO2), formaldehyde (HCHO), and clouds (using O2-O2 absorption) are currently being produced along with a Level 1B radiance product that will enable the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to produce an NRT TEMPO/Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) aerosol product.
In addition, an hourly NRT sulfur dioxide (SO2) concentration product from TEMPO is currently in development. By adapting established science algorithms from NASA's Ozone Monitoring Instrument, the solution also aims to produce seven science-quality products using trace gas measurements from TEMPO (SO2, ultraviolet aerosol optical depth (UVAOD), aerosol height, water (H2O), ultraviolet B radiation (UVB), glyoxal (CHOCHO), and bromine monoxide (BrO)).
Solution Characteristics
| Products | NO2 (Nitrogen Dioxide) | HCHO (Formaldehyde) | O2-O2 (Cloud) | Radiance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Platform | Intelsat 40e (IS-40e) | IS-40e | IS-40e | IS-40e |
| Sensor Type | Ultraviolet-Visible Spectrometer | Ultraviolet-Visible Spectrometer | Ultraviolet-Visible Spectrometer | Ultraviolet-Visible Spectrometer |
| Processing Level | 2 and 3 | 2 and 3 | 2 and 3 | 1B |
| Temporal Coverage | September 2025 - Present | September 2025 - Present | September 2025 - Present | September 2025 - Present |
| Temporal Frequency | Hourly | Hourly | Hourly | Hourly |
| Latency | 3 hours | 3 hours | 3 hours | 3 hours |
| Spatial Coverage | North America | North America | North America | North America |
| Spatial Resolution | 2.0 x 4.75 km2 | 2.0 x 4.75 km2 | 2.0 x 4.75 km2 | 2.0 x 4.75 km2 |
| Data Format | NetCDF4/HDF5 | NetCDF4/HDF5 | NetCDF4/HDF5 | NetCDF4/HDF5 |
Finalized data characteristics for the SO2 NRT product and seven science-quality products are not yet available.
Societal Impact
This solution will provide low-latency Level 1B radiance, NO2, HCHO, clouds, and SO2 data as well as science-quality aerosol, trace gas, and UVB products to support air quality forecasting and modeling and assist local, state, and federal air quality agencies alert the public to poor air quality.
Solution Resources
Need help using this solution? For more information, access Training Resources: TEMPO NRT and Enhanced Products.
Workshops and Open Meetings
| Title and Registration Link | Description | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction to Geostationary Satellite Observations for Air Quality Applications in the Western U.S. | In-person training through NASA's Applied Remote Sensing Training (ARSET) Program that provides an overview of TEMPO observations, shows users how to access and visualize the data, and highlights example air quality applications in the Western U.S. | August 5-7, 2025 |
| The Beginning of a New Era of Multidisciplinary NASA Satellite Data Products Enabled by the Satellite Needs Working Group | The SNWG is a U.S. Government inter-agency organizational body that was established in 2016 to identify the Earth observational gaps and data needs across the U.S. Federal Civilian Agencies. The SNWG effort is a 2-year process in which NASA identifies and ultimately implements a wide range of innovative solutions that benefit the entire Earth Science community. In this session, we invite representatives from NASA’s SNWG Implementation TEam (NSITE) behind several of the highly successful SNWG solutions to describe the new capabilities and where to access the data. This includes the Harmonized Landsat/Sentinel-2 (HLS), which is a cloud optimized dataset that standardizes common data bands from the two satellite constellations thereby effectively doubling the data available to the community. Another SNWG solution is the generation of a global surface water extent product suite that combines the data frequency of the optical satellites and the cloud-penetrating capabilities of satellite radar for a uniformed and frequent surface water product. Other solutions include new radiation and clouds products, global air quality, land surface disturbance, North America deformation, vegetation indices suite with HLS, and planetary boundary layer products. | December 13, 2023 |