| Members of the N.C. A&T Atmospheric Chemistry Group are working with researchers from eight other institutions this winter to investigate the little-known dynamics of wintertime air pollution.
The project is the Wintertime INvestigation of Transport, Emissions, and Reactivity (WINTER) in Mid-Atlantic Region. It will provide detailed, aircraft-based measurements to explore how chemical processes in the atmosphere vary by season.
Pollution occurs throughout the year, but the chemistry that determines the impact of pollution in the winter is largely unexplored. Most research has focused on warmer climates.
In winter, for example, short-lived pollutants like sulfur dioxide dissipate more slowly, so they affect wider areas downwind from the source of the pollution. How that works has been largely unexplored until now.
The A&T team includes Marc Fiddler, a research scientist in physics; Jaime Green, a doctoral student in energy and environmental sciences; and Steven G. Blanco Garcia, an undergraduate physics major. Their group is part of the Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry Research Lab, led by Dr. Solomon Bililign, professor of physics.
For six weeks this month and next, much of their work will be conducted in a C-130 research aircraft. The plane has been modified to accommodate scientific instruments with twice the heating and cooling capacity of a standard C-130 military model and more than twice the electrical power. The plane will be based in the mid-Atlantic region for six weeks this month and next for the WINTER project.
The A&T researchers are responsible for operating the plane’s sulfur dioxide instrument and the reduction of the data. The work includes routine calibration of the instrument between flights, preparation and operation during flights, data processing and quality control.
The A&T group then will analyze the data and write a paper on sulfur dioxide measurements during WINTER.
The study is funded by the National Science Foundation. The lead institution is the University of Washington. In addition to A&T, partners include Georgia Tech, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Maryland – Baltimore County, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. |
