KNMI’s Pieternel Levelt and her international team have been given a special award by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) for their successful OMI satellite project.
The award was presented to the OMI team for the international collaboration that has led to innovative satellite observations that are of great importance for research on air quality and applications in public health.
Pieternel Levelt, the scientific leader of the OMI project, said, “OMI has been contributing to the monitoring of the ozone layer, air quality and climate from space for almost 17 years. Because we have been measuring a record for 17 years, we have a unique data set in our hands. With all that data we can research changes in emissions worldwide. This award is a recognition of the international team that has worked together for the success of OMI over the past 20 years.”
OMI is a Dutch satellite instrument that has been orbiting the Earth on board NASA’s Aura satellite since 2004 and measures the composition of the global atmosphere.
In 2019, the team behind the OMI satellite project received the William T Pecora Award, an award from NASA and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) given to individuals or teams that have achieved extraordinary understanding of the Earth through remote sensing.