Monitoring of ambient fine particulate matter concentrations from space: application to European and African cities

Air pollution is a major issue for global environment as well as human health and well-being. Recently, satellites which are equipped with relevant air quality instruments have been placed into orbit. In this paper, we first present a review on satellite remote sensing of particulate pollution. We then present new results for Europe and on African cities particulate air pollutants using POLDER satellite data. Based on satellite AOD observations, we show that the number of days exceeding the 15.4 μg/m3 threshold is twice frequent in Ouagadougou, Burkina- Faso than in Paris, France. At the regional scale, we observe that the northern coast of the golf of Guinea is dramatically impacted by poor air quality.