NEW YORK (AP) — Soon people will be able to use satellite technology and artificial intelligence to track dangerous soot pollution in their neighborhoods — and where it comes from — in a way not so different from monitoring approaching storms under plans by a nonprofit coalition led by former Vice President Al Gore.
Gore, who started Climate TRACE, which uses satellites to monitor the location of heat-trapping methane sources, on Wednesday expanded his system to track the source and plume of pollution from tiny particles, often referred to as soot, on a neighborhood basis for 2,500 cities across the world. Particle pollution kills millions of people worldwide each year — and tens of thousands in the United States — according to scientific studies and reports.
Gore’s coalition uses 300 satellites, 30,000 ground-tracking sensors, and artificial intelligence to track 137,095 sources of particle pollution, with 3,937 of them categorized as 'super emitters' for how much they spew. Users can look at long-term trends, but in about a year Gore hopes these can become available daily to be incorporated into weather apps, like allergy reports.
It’s not just seeing the pollutants. The website shows who is spewing them. Gore remarked, 'It’s difficult, before AI, for people to really see precisely where this conventional air pollution is coming from. When it’s over in their homes and in their neighborhoods and when people have a very clear idea of this, then I think they’re empowered with the truth of their situation.'
Unlike methane, soot pollution isn’t technically a climate issue because it doesn’t cause the world to warm, but it does come from the same process: fossil fuel combustion. 'It’s the same combustion process of the same fuels that produce both the greenhouse gas pollution and the particulate pollution that kills almost 9 million people every single year,' Gore noted.
Gore’s firm found Karachi, Pakistan, had the most people exposed to soot pollution, followed by Guangzhou, China, Seoul, South Korea, New York City, and Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Gore, who started Climate TRACE, which uses satellites to monitor the location of heat-trapping methane sources, on Wednesday expanded his system to track the source and plume of pollution from tiny particles, often referred to as soot, on a neighborhood basis for 2,500 cities across the world. Particle pollution kills millions of people worldwide each year — and tens of thousands in the United States — according to scientific studies and reports.
Gore’s coalition uses 300 satellites, 30,000 ground-tracking sensors, and artificial intelligence to track 137,095 sources of particle pollution, with 3,937 of them categorized as 'super emitters' for how much they spew. Users can look at long-term trends, but in about a year Gore hopes these can become available daily to be incorporated into weather apps, like allergy reports.
It’s not just seeing the pollutants. The website shows who is spewing them. Gore remarked, 'It’s difficult, before AI, for people to really see precisely where this conventional air pollution is coming from. When it’s over in their homes and in their neighborhoods and when people have a very clear idea of this, then I think they’re empowered with the truth of their situation.'
Unlike methane, soot pollution isn’t technically a climate issue because it doesn’t cause the world to warm, but it does come from the same process: fossil fuel combustion. 'It’s the same combustion process of the same fuels that produce both the greenhouse gas pollution and the particulate pollution that kills almost 9 million people every single year,' Gore noted.
Gore’s firm found Karachi, Pakistan, had the most people exposed to soot pollution, followed by Guangzhou, China, Seoul, South Korea, New York City, and Dhaka, Bangladesh.
