LARGEST AIR QUALITY AND CLIMATE
STUDY STARTS IN NEW ENGLAND
June 28, 2004 — Hundreds of government and university scientists from across the country and in western Europe will be sampling the quality of the air this summer in the largest air quality and climate study to date as part of the International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transformation. NOAA and NASA are co-leads of the endeavor, which begins July 5 and ends in August. (Click NOAA image for larger view of the assets employed during the New England air quality study. Click here for high resolution version, which is a large file. Please credit “NOAA.”)
A special focus of the sampling is a comprehensive effort to characterize air quality in the New England region, work that is a major component of ICARTT called the New England Air Quality Study. The research will help provide the solid science needed to underpin the region’s future efforts to improve air quality for its citizens.
Scientists will be conducting research on all fronts—land, sea and air—to provide unprecedented information about the air as it crosses the U.S., leaves New England, traverses the Atlantic Ocean and arrives in western Europe.
A dozen different research aircraft, including the NOAA WP-3D “hurricane hunter,” the NASA DC-8, the Canadian Convair 580, the French and German Falcons and the United Kingdom’s Bae-146, will take to the air as the mission’s “flying laboratories” to study the chemistry and meteorology of the atmosphere. Operating from the Gulf of Maine, the NOAA research vessel Ronald H. Brown will get a detailed look at the chemistry of the air as it leaves the U.S. coast and heads eastward. Ground stations throughout New England, Nova Scotia and at the Azores will further define the atmospheric picture.
is extremely gratifying to see the various agencies in the U.S., Canada,
and Europe combining their considerable capabilities to provide new information
that will help guide future environmental decisions on air quality and
climate,“ said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad
C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and
atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “NOAA is very pleased to lend
its expertise to this international enterprise that is addressing two
of the most important and complex environmental issues of our day—air
quality and climate.”
The New England Air Quality Study component of the larger study will also help provide the scientific understanding needed for a new air quality forecasting capability that NOAA is developing in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency. The forecast guidance is being launched this summer in New England in conjunction with the NEAQS mission.
"The continuous, ground-based, air quality measurements from four University of New Hampshire atmospheric observatories will provide the foundation for the sampling done by NOAA's mobile platforms in the Northeast this summer," said Robert Talbot, director of UNH's Atmospheric Investigation, Regional Modeling, Analysis and Prediction program. "The combination of all these measurements will give us an unprecedented amount of data to better understand regional air quality and help launch the forecasting that NOAA plans for later this year."
NOAA and the University of New Hampshire are co-leads of the New England Air Quality Study.
NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of the nationís coastal and marine resources. NOAA is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.