Anti-smog fighter wants to brighten the world鈥檚 skies
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Five years ago, Zhang Xingying first used Chinese polar-orbiting satellites to detect and measure smog, looking for ways to tackle air pollution.
Now as China makes progress in clearing its skies, the meteorologist hopes the technology can also be shared to brighten the future for all 鈥 at home and overseas.
鈥淪mog may be on the retreat at the moment but remains a problem that cannot be ignored, not only in China but in many other countries,鈥 said Zhang, 40, chief scientist of atmosphere composition remote sensing at the China Meteorological Administration. 鈥淥ur satellites can help more countries with air pollution.鈥
His remarks stem from his research on particulate matter, which he has been involved in since 2001, when the pollutant was largely unknown to the public.
The thick, grey haze that frequently descends on eastern and northern China prompted the government to begin to purify the air, with hunting down polluters the most urgent task.
Zhang and his team modeled the evolution of smog from 1979 to 2013 and then used satellites equipped with ultraviolet sensors to predict long-term trends and variations. 鈥淭he geostationary orbit satellite Fengyun-4, launched in December 2016, can take clear pictures of the movement of smog that enable us to track the sources of pollution and improve forecasting,鈥 he said.
Thanks to numerous scientists like Zhang, the skies over Chinese cities have started to turn bluer, even in winter. The PM2.5 index in Beijing has fallen by 39.6 percent since 2013.
For Zhang, however, the battle is far from over. 鈥淔rom India to Egypt, smog has spread throughout developing countries in the middle of modernization,鈥 he said.
China has started to provide other countries with pollutant monitoring services, helping them to establish their own remote sensing networks.
The Fengyun series of meteorological satellites cover 42 countries and regions along the Belt and Road. Last year, the CMA trained nearly 400 specialists and awarded 71 scholarships to meteorological and hydrological students, all from abroad.
鈥淲e share the same environment and the same Earth. Helping others is actually helping ourselves. That鈥檚 what 鈥榓 community with shared future鈥 means,鈥 Zhang said, who is also chief China scientist for an European Union-funded remote sensing research program.
Zhang calls for commercial use of satellite data.
鈥淚t can be used for a wide variety of purposes, such as steering ocean-going freighters around storms, predicting grain output and in carbon trading,鈥 he said.
鈥淲ithout increased consumption of resources, the green economy will create new growth points for China and the world,鈥 Zhang said.
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