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Where: Texas and New Mexico from Houston, Texas
When: May - June 2026
How: NOAA CSL will utilize the NOAA WP-3D aircraft, equipped with a state-of-the-art chemical payload designed to measure a comprehensive suite of trace gases, greenhouse gases, and meteorological parameters. Staging from Houston in May 2026, the mission plans for approximately 55-80 flight hours.
Two decades after the landmark TexAQS 2000 and TexAQS 2006 campaigns, the NOAA Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) in collaboration with the NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) will lead TexAQS 2026 to investigate the evolving atmospheric landscape of Texas air quality. While U.S. air quality has seen decades of improvement, more recent trends in ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) have improved only slowly or even degraded in some regions. Major Texas metropolitan areas, including Houston and Dallas, are in serious nonattainment of the 8-hour ozone standard. This study aims to update scientific understanding of these challenges in the context of shifting emission sources, influence of wildfires, transboundary air pollution, and progress made in the petrochemical sector.
