Hot Links--Physics, UMBC

The Smog Blog

INTRODUCTION

Since the summer of 2003, the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) Atmospheric Lidar group has been operating a weblog called U.S. Air Quality. The blog enables multiple users to post daily images and text concerning the US air quality. Data from multiple sources, including satellite sensors, ground-based air quality monitors, and UMBC lidar systems are used to evaluate daily air quality events. This effort is part of a parallel lidar network called the Regional East Atmospheric Lidar Mesonet (REALM) [Hoff et al., 2003]. REALM is a lidar mesonet designed to monitor air quality in the vertical from multiple locations on the east coast.

MAIN DATA PRODUCTS USED

Texas Dust Storm (MODIS Direct)
Imagery data from MODIS AQUA and TERRA are examined daily. Part of the data is obtained in near real time from a link to the University of Wisconsin MODIS Direct. The data granules are transferred to UMBC as part of a collaboration sponsored by NOAA CREST. Data from EPA ground-based particulate matter monitors are obtained from the EPA AirNow website.

In collaboration with NOAA NESDIS, UMBC has developed a specialized GASP Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) viewer that allows rapid scrolling through images, zooming, data-value retrieval, and animation.

The GASP product, which is derived from GOES data, was originally developed by Ken Knapp [Knapp et al. 2002] and is being deployed by Ana Prados and Donna McNamara. Data also come from the UMBC Elastic Lidar Facility (ELF). The ELF system operates in the visible at 532 nm, and can retrieve aerosol backscatter and extinction up to altitudes between 6-10 km in the daytime and 10-15 km at night. In addition, the ELF system can determine cloud bottoms up to an altitude of 15 km, and cloud tops when the cloud optical depth permits.

WEBLOG POST DESCRIPTION

The daily forecast is used to plan lidar profiling sessions for either the elastic aerosol system or the water vapor profiling Raman lidar. Data may be searched by keyword, category, date and month. Some of the interesting posts include the California fires from October 2003 as well as the Alaska and British Columbia fires. Smoke plumes from the California wildfires were detected over Maryland and the Northeast. The smoke arrived on November 2, 2003 at high altitudes ranging between 6-8 km. Fires in Alaska and northwestern Canada were triggered by lighting in early July 2004. The damage was extensive. “The Alaska fires comprised 86% the fire area burned in the US up to September 1” [Hoff et al., 2004b].

GROWTH OF WEBLOG POPULARITY

The U.S Air Quality weblog has become increasingly popular. Our website statistics show that over one million hits have been received since September 2003. The “top level” domains accessing the site include U.S. educational and government visitors.

AK/BC Smoke at UMBC July 10 2004

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was supported and monitored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under (Grant or Contract) Number NA17AE162. The statements contained within the manuscript/research article are not the opinions of the funding agency or the U.S. government, but reflect the author’s opinions. This work was also supported by NASA Langley Grant NAS1-99107.

UMBC ATMOSPHERIC LIDAR GROUP

Kamonayi Mubenga(1), Nikisa Jordan(1), Jill Engel-Cox(2,1), Raymond Hoff(1), Kevin McCann(1), Ray Rogers(1)

(1) Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET), University of Maryland Baltimore County, (2)Battelle Memorial Institute

REFERENCES

Hoff, Raymond M., Kevin J. McCann, Jens Reichardt, Belay Demoz, David N. Whiteman, Tom McGee, M. Patrick McCormick, C. Russell Philbrick, Kevin Strawbridge, Fred Moshary, Barry Gross, Sam Ahmed, Demetrius Venable, Everette Joseph, Thomas Duck, Ivan Dors, January 10-11, 2003: Regional East Atmospheric LIDAR Mesonet, REALM, NOAA-CREST/NASA-EPSCoR Joint Symposium for Climate Studies University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez Campus.

Hoff, R. M., K.McCann, B.Demoz, and D. N. Whiteman, 2004a: Aerosol profiling in the Washington-Baltimore urban corridor: a REALM application. Paper 1.12, 6th Symposium on Atmospheric Chemistry. Amer. Met. Soc. Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA.

Hoff, Raymond M., Tom Duck, Ed Eloranta, Jill Engel-Cox, Nikisa Jordan, ShobhaKondragunta, Nick Krotkov, Kevin McCann, Fred Moshary, Kamonayi Mubenga, Steve Palm, Ana Prados, Ray Rogers, Lynn Sparling, James Spinhirne, KevinStrawbridge, Omar Torres, September 2004b: Multisensor Observations of the Long-Range Transport of Three Large Forest Fire Plumes to the Northeastern U.S. NOAA CREST- NOAA Educational Partnership Program Symposium, City College of New York CCNY campus.

Knapp, K. R., T. H. Vonder Haar, and Y. J. Kaufman, 2002: Aerosol optical depth retrieval from GOES-8: Uncertainty study and retrieval validation over South America, J. Geophys. Res., 107 (D7), 4055, doi:10.1029/2001JD000505.

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Last update 04-25-2005

[UMBC Physics Link-of-the Week Archive]

Physics Department | UMBC | Email Physics | JCET | JCA
Department of Physics - 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250

INTRODUCTION
Since the summer of 2003, the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) Atmospheric Lidar group has been operating a weblog called U.S. Air Quality. The blog enables multiple users to post daily images and text concerning the US air quality. Data from multiple sources, including satellite sensors, ground-based air quality monitors, and UMBC lidar systems are used to evaluate daily air quality events. This effort is part of a parallel lidar network called the Regional East Atmospheric Lidar Mesonet (REALM) [Hoff et al., 2003]. REALM is a lidar mesonet designed to monitor air quality in the vertical from multiple locations on the east coast.
MAIN DATA PRODUCTS USED
Texas Dust Storm (MODIS Direct)	Imagery data from MODIS AQUA and TERRA are examined daily. Part of the data is obtained in near real time from a link to the University of Wisconsin MODIS Direct. The data granules are transferred to UMBC as part of a collaboration sponsored by NOAA CREST. Data from EPA ground-based particulate matter monitors are obtained from the EPA AirNow website.
In collaboration with NOAA NESDIS, UMBC has developed a specialized GASP Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) viewer that allows rapid scrolling through images, zooming, data-value retrieval, and animation. The GASP product, which is derived from GOES data, was originally developed by Ken Knapp [Knapp et al. 2002] and is being deployed by Ana Prados and Donna McNamara. Data also come from the UMBC Elastic Lidar Facility (ELF). The ELF system operates in the visible at 532 nm, and can retrieve aerosol backscatter and extinction up to altitudes between 6-10 km in the daytime and 10-15 km at night. In addition, the ELF system can determine cloud bottoms up to an altitude of 15 km, and cloud tops when the cloud optical depth permits.
WEBLOG POST DESCRIPTION
The daily forecast is used to plan lidar profiling sessions for either the elastic aerosol system or the water vapor profiling Raman lidar. Data may be searched by keyword, category, date and month. Some of the interesting posts include the California fires from October 2003 as well as the Alaska and British Columbia fires. Smoke plumes from the California wildfires were detected over Maryland and the Northeast. The smoke arrived on November 2, 2003 at high altitudes ranging between 6-8 km. Fires in Alaska and northwestern Canada were triggered by lighting in early July 2004. The damage was extensive. “The Alaska fires comprised 86% the fire area burned in the US up to September 1” [Hoff et al., 2004b].
GROWTH OF WEBLOG POPULARITY

The U.S Air Quality weblog has become increasingly popular. Our website statistics show that over one million hits have been received since September 2003. The “top level” domains accessing the site include U.S. educational and government visitors.
	AK/BC Smoke at UMBC July 10 2004
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was supported and monitored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) under (Grant or Contract) Number NA17AE162. The statements contained within the manuscript/research article are not the opinions of the funding agency or the U.S. government, but reflect the author’s opinions. This work was also supported by NASA Langley Grant NAS1-99107.
UMBC ATMOSPHERIC LIDAR GROUP
Kamonayi Mubenga(1), Nikisa Jordan(1), Jill Engel-Cox(2,1), Raymond Hoff(1), Kevin McCann(1), Ray Rogers(1) (1) Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET), University of Maryland Baltimore County, (2)Battelle Memorial Institute
REFERENCES
Hoff, Raymond M., Kevin J. McCann, Jens Reichardt, Belay Demoz, David N. Whiteman, Tom McGee, M. Patrick McCormick, C. Russell Philbrick, Kevin Strawbridge, Fred Moshary, Barry Gross, Sam Ahmed, Demetrius Venable, Everette Joseph, Thomas Duck, Ivan Dors, January 10-11, 2003: Regional East Atmospheric LIDAR Mesonet, REALM, NOAA-CREST/NASA-EPSCoR Joint Symposium for Climate Studies University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez Campus. Hoff, R. M., K.McCann, B.Demoz, and D. N. Whiteman, 2004a: Aerosol profiling in the Washington-Baltimore urban corridor: a REALM application. Paper 1.12, 6th Symposium on Atmospheric Chemistry. Amer. Met. Soc. Annual Meeting, Seattle, WA. Hoff, Raymond M., Tom Duck, Ed Eloranta, Jill Engel-Cox, Nikisa Jordan, ShobhaKondragunta, Nick Krotkov, Kevin McCann, Fred Moshary, Kamonayi Mubenga, Steve Palm, Ana Prados, Ray Rogers, Lynn Sparling, James Spinhirne, KevinStrawbridge, Omar Torres, September 2004b: Multisensor Observations of the Long-Range Transport of Three Large Forest Fire Plumes to the Northeastern U.S. NOAA CREST- NOAA Educational Partnership Program Symposium, City College of New York CCNY campus. Knapp, K. R., T. H. Vonder Haar, and Y. J. Kaufman, 2002: Aerosol optical depth retrieval from GOES-8: Uncertainty study and retrieval validation over South America, J. Geophys. Res., 107 (D7), 4055, doi:10.1029/2001JD000505. ___________________________________________ Last update 04-25-2005