Chemistry Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen has coined the term “anthropocene†to put the modern industrial era in the geological context to highlight the fact that human-induced changes to the earth are in some cases as large as the changes that occurred in geological times. Though the changes in the terra firma and the biosphere are the most visible manifestations of these changes, the quality of our life-sustaining atmosphere is also changing rapidly. Air quality is affected not only by the “bad air†that we can smell or feel in our lungs but also by the change in the composition of the “good air†that has made life on this planet possible. The most well known of these changes has been the rapid thinning of the ozone layer in the polar regions, popularly known as the Ozone Hole. Satellite images of this phenomenon captured the attention of the world in the mid 80s leading to rapid phase-out of the offending chemicals. Examples of bad air are gases and particulate matter near the surface. I will discuss how modern satellite instruments are tracking them to help the policy makers in tracking appropriate actions.
Dr. Pawan Kumar Bhartia is a Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA. He is an internationally known expert on ultraviolet remote sensing of Earth from space. He led the TOMS Project from 1991 to 2005, which received the William T. Pecora award in 2006, for creating unique long-term datasets from TOMS. He led the Aura/OMI US science team from 2004 to 2011 and currently leads the team that is producing stratospheric ozone and aerosol profiles from the OMPS-limb instrument on the Suomi NPP satellite. He served as the Head of the Atmospheric Chemistry Branch at NASA GSFC from 1994 to 2006.
He was elected to the International Ozone Commission in 2008. He is the recipient of William Nordberg medal and Robert H. Goddard Award of Merit from NASA GSFC, Outstanding Leadership and the Distinguished Service Medals from NASA, and the Remote Sensing Prize from the American Meteorological Society.
He received Ph. D. in Physics and M.S. in Computer Science from Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, and B.Sc (Hon) and M. Sc from Patna University, Patna, India.