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.
Ann Dillner
Research Engineer, Air Quality Research Center (AQRC)
The Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) network measures the chemical composition of atmospheric particulate matter at over 160 locations throughout the United States. As part of the routine quality control process, we noted decreases in the network-wide vanadium (V) and nickel (Ni) concentrations in 2015 relative to the previous years. Enriched V and Ni with respect to soil are indicative of heavy fuel oil burning and are often used as tracers for emissions from marine vessels.
