SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES

NASA’s scientific goals include a more detailed understanding of global atmospheric change phenomena, with a particular emphasis on climate research and the assessment of air quality. To these ends, NASA has established a global network of sun photometers, called AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork), in cooperation with a wide range of international partner agencies and institutions. These devices are used to measure water vapor and aerosol optical properties, which are necessary measurements as well as being essential for ground-based validation for aerosol measurements taken by satellites.

Under an agreement that entered into force on September 22, 2010, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Public Institution Institute of Applied Physics, Ministry of Education and Research (IAP) of the Republic of Moldova, are currently cooperating in their continued support of the establishment of sun photometer stations at mutually agreed sites throughout the region. The inclusion of these stations within the global AERONET will significantly improve the understanding of the properties and concentration of aerosols and their relationship to aerosols on both global and regional scales. Another objective of this cooperation is to encourage scientists from both the United States and Moldova to develop research programs using data collected in Moldova along with aerosol data available from the global AERONET database located at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland.