Quality Assessment and airborne measurements in the Colorado Front Range using the Unmanned Whole Air Sampling System (UWASS)
Abstract
Poor air quality has injurious consequences for human health. Oil and gas, vehicle traffic and manufacturing industries may degrade local air quality through the release of air toxins, such as benzene, acrolein and fermaldehyde, as well as other VOCs and oxygenated VOCS, which influence formation of tropospheric ozone and secondary organic aerosols. Limited information is available, however, on the vertical and horizontal gradients or the diurnal variability of trace gases in the boundary layer near potential emission sources.We assess the performance of the Unmanned Whole Air Sampling System (UWASS), which seeks to quantify local emission ratios and background concentrations of pollutants. This instrument collects 15 miniaturized whole air samples per flight for subsequent analysis on the Trace Organic Gas Analyzer (TOGA) and ambient measurements of temperature, relative humidity, pressure, wind speed and wind direction at 1 Hz. Preliminary data suggest that the UWASS system is capable of capturing ppt levels in light hydrocarbons and oxygenated VOCS, which are elevated as a result of industry and vehicle traffic and indicate that ambient meteorological measurements are free from the influence of the hexacoptor rotor-wash. Finally, we discuss results obtained from several flights along the Colorado Front Range with regards to the influence of anthropogenic activities on local air quality.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.A43J..08A
- Keywords:
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- 3305 Climate change and variability;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSESDE: 3307 Boundary layer processes;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSESDE: 3311 Clouds and aerosols;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES