The Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) on NASA’s Aura satellite measures a suite of atmospheric gases, temperature and cloud ice in the limb view of Earth’s atmosphere from microwave thermal emissions. I use mainly the MLS water vapor and cloud ice products to study climate variabilities. Some of my colleagues in the MLS group make use of MLS products, such as carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), nitrous oxide (N2O), chlorine monoxide (CLO), nitric acid (HNO3), HCL, and HCN, etc, to study atmospheric tracer transport and ozone chemistry. MLS also measures increased SO2 in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere from volcanic eruptions. In June 2009, the Sarychev volcano (48N, 153E, Russia’s Kuril Islands, northeast of Japan) erupted and created clear signals in the MLS SO2 and HCL measurements from 147 hPa to 46 hPa. In last week’s MLS group meeting, Dr. Lucien Froidevaux showed enhanced HCL near 40-50N in the middle of June; and Dr. Hugh Pumphrey showed the cross-continental transport of the high SO2 and HCL from Japan to Canada due to Sarychev volcanic eruption in the period of about a week. It is exciting to monitor the Earth near real-time from space. The unique eyes’ of MLS tells us many interesting stories of our ever-changing home planet.

P.S. Information about MLS data products can be found at http://mls.jpl.nasa.gov.