Earth Day is this Thursday, April 22 and to help reporters develop stories about air quality monitoring, modeling and evaluation, the Air Quality Research Center is here with a few researchers and educators to support the sharing of knowledge. 

Research Engineer, Air Quality Research Center (AQRC)

Research Interests:

Roy Harrison, a researcher and professor at the University of Birmingham, UK, recently conducted a study to review the reductions in PM 2.5 and NO2 levels that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns over 11 cities. Harrison applied machine learning techniques to remove the effects of weather on the gaseous concentrations to see how the air quality had truly changed due to the lockdowns. 

By Susan O’Neill and Sean Raffuse

Originally posted in EOS on 26 February 2021: https://eos.org/science-updates/advances-in-satellite-data-for-wildfire-smoke-forecasting 

Over 111 million metric tons of CO2 were emitted by wildfires in California for the 2020 year. The transportation sector is the only area to have emitted more carbon dioxide at over 169 million metric tons. While from the outset, that looks pretty bad, you may still wonder, "In actuality, how bad is the wildfire smoke for Climate Change?"

In an interview with the SF Chronical, AQRC Director, Tony Wexler, stated that the wildfire carbon emissions are of almost no concern for him in relation to climate change.

A recent report conducted by researchers with support from the Air Quality Research Center Director, Anthony Wexler, demonstrated that N95 and surgical masks did reduce the amount of aerosolized particles emitted while speaking and breathing. However, they found that the fabric of the face coverings released a large number of fibers into the air. This accentuates the importance of washing them frequently. This recent study tested the different face masks most commonly used and the amount of outward transmission of particles there was. 

NOAA/NASA's Suomi NPP Satellite captured the above image of both aerosols traveling the US and hurricanes heading towards the US. Read their full write up of the image posted on September 15, 2020 below.

NOAA/NASA 

Low-cost air quality sensors are becoming more accurate and affordable to the general public month by month. There is a grand amount of research occurring in the field so air quality sensors. Government, private industry, non-profits and community scientists are all concerned about the air pollution around the world.

It's only August and the 2020 wildfire season has already burned more acres than the worst season on record (2017 with a whopping 1.2 million acres burned). As discussed in an article by Mic, climate change has exacerbated the regular wildfire "season" and the Coronavirus is making it exceptionally hard for firefighters to tend to the blaze. While the smoke will not carry COVID-19, the respiratory problems caused by the black carbon particles within smoke, PM 2.5, will make people more susceptible to respiratory illness like COVID-19. 

It’s widely known through the Air Quality Research Center that outdoor air pollution leads to untimely deaths throughout the world, however, a recent publication by Dr. Erwan Monier, Associate Professor of Climate Change Impacts in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, and associates demonstrated that many of these deaths are a result of cross-state air pollution.