Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-21-2025

Department

Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences

Abstract

We present the first sulfur dioxide (SO2) retrievals from Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO), the first geostationary atmospheric composition sensor to cover North America, along with some potential applications of TEMPO SO2 data. We show that high resolution (∼10 km2) TEMPO measurements can be used to produce good quality SO2 retrievals with relatively small noise and biases. We demonstrate that hourly TEMPO data are useful for monitoring volcanic hazards, by providing frequent updates on the plume location and additional information on the plume height or winds. With the large number of measurements from TEMPO, it is also feasible to monitor diurnal changes in SO2 for relatively large sources such as the Cantarell oil field. We also show that high-cadence TEMPO measurements allow estimates of SO2 degassing from Popocatépetl volcano on sub-daily timescales. Overall, our results suggest that TEMPO can significantly enhance space-based SO2 detection and monitoring over North America.

Publisher's Statement

© 2025 His Majesty the King in Right of Canada and The Author(s). Reproduced with the permission of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada. This article has been contributed to by U.S. Government employees and their work is in the public domain in the USA. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.1029/2025GL115788

Publication Title

Geophysical Research Letters

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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