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STUDY TITLE: Use of Satellite Data for Offshore Air Quality Applications

REPORT TITLE: NASA Resources to Monitor Offshore and Coastal Air Quality (BOEM 2020-046)

CONTRACT NUMBER: M17PG00026

SPONSORING OCS REGION: Headquarters

APPLICABLE PLANNING AREAS: Central, Western, and Eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) 

FISCAL YEARS OF PROJECT FUNDING: 2018–2020

COMPLETION DATE OF REPORT: September 2020

COSTS: FY 2018: $307,000; FY 2019: $247,300; FY 2020: $0; 

CUMULATIVE PROJECT COST: $554,300

PROJECT MANAGER: B. Duncan

AFFILIATION: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center

ADDRESS: 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20771

OBJECTIVES: The primary goal of this inter-agency agreement is to evaluate the feasibility of using 

satellite data in the offshore environments for

(1) Estimating ground level concentrations of criteria National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), 

precursors, and visibility pollutants; monitoring long term trends of these pollutants where there are no 

monitors in the GOM and Pacific Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Regions; and estimating background 

concentration data in the Alaska and Atlantic OCS Regions before oil and gas or renewables 

development

(2) Validating the satellite data with offshore monitoring in a field campaign.

DESCRIPTION: The purpose of this inter-agency agreement is to work with NASA’s Atmospheric 

Chemistry and Dynamics Laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Center to assess the utility of satellite data 

for air quality applications, specifically through estimating and monitoring of offshore ground level 

concentrations of criteria NAAQS, precursors, and visibility pollutants in the GOM, Pacific, Alaska, and 

Atlantic OCS Regions to support the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM) requirements 

under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 

as well as assessing the use of satellite data to improve and validate BOEM’s existing emissions 

inventories and photochemical modeling. The exploration and development of oil and gas resources on 

the OCS in the GOM and Alaska, as well as potential renewable energy and alternate use projects, will 

require BOEM to validate information on the concentrations of air pollutants emitted offshore for a variety 

of NEPA-related decision documents and for maintaining compliance with OCSLA. This study will 

improve BOEM’s ability to characterize the impacts of offshore pollutant dispersion.

This inter-agency agreement consisted of two parts:

(1) Examine using satellite data to estimate offshore ground level concentrations of criteria NAAQS, 

precursors, and visibility pollutants; estimate background concentration data in the Alaska and Atlantic 

OCS Regions before oil and gas or renewable development; and monitor long term trends of these 

concentrations. BOEM envisions conducting a scoping study to assess whether current satellite data 

can provide the necessary information to estimate offshore NAAQS, precursors, and visibility

pollutants.
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(2) Validate the satellite data with offshore monitoring in a field campaign through the use of air 

concentration sensors on wave gliders, sail drones, or drones, and possibly through air concentration 

monitors on vessels. “Ground truthed” data should be sufficiently representative to properly validate the 

satellite data spatially and temporally in the GOM and then extend to other offshore regions. All sensors 

and monitors should be calibrated according to appropriate US Environmental Protection Agency 

(USEPA) methodology. A field campaign protocol may be developed beforehand to explain approach, 

monitors used, monitor calibration, location, and timeframe.

SIGNIFICANT CONCLUSIONS: This work represents the first of a two-part study set up by NASA and 

BOEM in 2017. The study summarizes a three-year investigation on the feasibility of using satellite 

remote sensing to monitor emissions of oil and gas operations over the OCS to determine if they have 

negative impacts on coastal air quality (AQ). 

In this report, we present the suite of NASA datasets and tools, which are free and publicly available, 

that will enable BOEM personnel to monitor air pollution offshore and along coastal environments of the 

continental U.S. We provide three case studies to demonstrate the current capabilities of these 

resources in the GOM OCS Region and discuss how they may be integrated into BOEM’s standard 

operating procedure (SOP) for assessing offshore AQ.

STUDY RESULTS: It is recommended that BOEM and NASA continue to work together. In addition, 

we make three high-level recommendations to BOEM:

1) We recommend that BOEM adopts an integrated approach to monitoring AQ that combines the 

strengths of various monitoring technologies, including regulatory-grade AQ monitors and nontraditional sources of AQ data: satellite data, AQ models, low-cost portable sensors, in situ 

monitors, and other ancillary datasets. As a first step, we recommend that BOEM personnel 

take advantage of the NASA Applied Remote SEnsing Training (ARSET) and Health and Air 

Quality Applied Sciences Team (HAQAST) programs to explore NASA’s free and publicly 

available resources, so that BOEM personnel may identify the potential of these resources for 

BOEM’s various applications and begin integrating them into BOEM’s SOP. Most of these 

resources are easily accessed via webtools, though accessing, processing, and analyzing 

satellite data (beyond visualization with webtools) will require more effort on the part of BOEM 

personnel.

2) We recommend that BOEM personnel continue to interact with NASA personnel, and 

potentially personnel from the USEPA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

(NOAA), to identify mutually beneficial collaborations that will advance BOEM’s goals to 

monitor AQ in U.S. offshore and coastal waters. Several potential examples of these 

collaborations are given (e.g., field campaigns to measure air pollution).

3) We recommend that BOEM personnel continue to work with NASA personnel to understand 

the relation between quantities observed from space and pollutant concentrations within the 

boundary layer, including offshore and along the coast. In a companion report, we show that 

pollutant concentrations can have complex 3-D distributions offshore (e.g., from the vertical 

structure of pollutant emissions) and in coastal environments (e.g., from complex sea breezes). 

BOEM personnel would benefit from working with NASA personnel, who have developed the 

NASA data and simulated products and, therefore, know their strengths and limitations for 

BOEM’s applications, as well as how to avoid common mistakes when analyzing them.

STUDY PRODUCTS: Duncan BN. 2020. NASA resources to monitor offshore and coastal air quality. 

Sterling (VA): U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. OCS Study BOEM 

2020-046. 41 p.