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Measuring atmospheric pollutants

Canadian instrument MOPITT – 10 years of successful operations

March 11 2010

The Canadian instrument MOPITT (Measurement of pollution in the troposphere) is celebrating its 10th anniversary of successful operations in March 2010.

Launched in 1999 aboard NASA’s satellite TERRA, MOPITT has been continuously scanning the Earth's atmosphere to make long-term measurements of carbon monoxide concentrations. This instrument is a Canadian contribution to NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS), an international environmental study project.

Under the leadership of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), MOPITT was designed by researcher Jim Drummond from the University of Toronto and built by COM DEV International from Cambridge, Ontario, MOPITT was initially planned for a five-year term, however, the experiment has been prolonged given the quality of the data collected and the good health of the satellite.

The accurate and efficient MOPITT probes every part of the atmosphere in four days.

Ten years of providing information on the atmosphere to help scientists to forecast the long-term effects of pollution, to understand the increase in ozone concentrations in the lower atmosphere and to orient the assessment and implementation of short-term pollution controls.

What a great success story for Canada!