The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring Pollution (TEMPO) instrument is a grating spectrometer that is sensitive to visible and ultraviolet wavelengths of light. It sits aboard the Maxar-built Intelsat 40e satellite and monitors major air pollutants across the North American continent every daylight hour at high spatial resolution. TEMPO provided hourly measurements of O3, NO2, and other key elements of air pollution spanning the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Yucatan Peninsula to the Canadian oil sands.
Data from TEMPO helps researchers assess and characterize air quality and better understand interactions between humans and the environment.