Nighttime Transport and Chemical Processing of O3, NOx, and VOCs: Analysis of Observations from the SETTS 2005 Field Program
| Project Period: | 08/01/2008 - 06/30/2009 |
| Total Budget: | $70,400 |
| Sub-Contractors: | Battelle
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In summer 2005, TERC supported a Lagrangian aircraft field campaign to characterize the transport and transformation of the Houston urban and industrial plumes as they moved across the state overnight. The campaign deployed the newly designed Controlled Meteorological (CMET) balloons to serve as Lagrangian markers for the pollutant plumes. These balloons would transmit their position to an aircraft carrying instruments to measure O3, NOx, NOy, CO, aerosol size, and volatile organic gases (using canisters and PTR-MS). A small instrument package (GPS position, temperature, moisture and pressure) was also carried onboard each balloon and transmitted to our base of operations and aircraft via satellite communications. By releasing the CMET balloons just downwind of the Houston urban area at sunset, we were able to tag the polluted air mass and direct the aircraft to sample it multiple times throughout the night to characterize the plume dispersion and chemistry. The only quality assurance checks and analysis of these observations were carried out while in the field, with the final report being turned in upon completion of the campaign; no substantive analysis has yet been carried out using these observations.
This project consists of three tasks:
- Compile all the trace gas and aerosol data together with the CMET balloon and other meteorological data collected during the SETTS campaign,
- Perform empirical analysis of the data and prepare inputs for detailed model analysis, and
- Perform constrained Lagrangian box-model analysis of the data to gain deeper insights into nighttime chemical processing of O3, NOx, and VOCs.
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