NASA Mission Studies Air Pollution Over Ethiopia

NASA's air pollution monitoring network in Addis Ababa has delivered one of the most detailed long-term looks yet at how soot and particulate matter shift across a city over seasons and time of day. Data from 2022 to 2025 reveals the air quality is significantly worse than comparable U.S. cities: black carbon levels measured four to nine times higher than in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Boston. Per NASA, the three-year average for fine particles known as PM2.5 was thirty micrograms per cubic meter—more than three times the EPA's health standard. The findings come as Ethiopia is taking steps to improve, including banning new internal combustion engine vehicles in 2024 and adding bike lanes and electric infrastructure. NASA's space-based monitoring component, a specialized camera to map these particles from orbit, is scheduled to launch no earlier than late 2027.

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