ASSISTANCE FOR VISIBILITY DATA ANALYSIS AND IMAGE DISPLAY TECHNIQUES

Hand, Jenny

Objectives and Purpose for the Cooperative Agreement between the National Park Service and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere The protection of national park resources from poor air quality is a central component of the National Park Service (NPS) Air Resources Division’s (ARD) mission. These resources include visibility, or the ability of visitors to see the scenic vista unimpaired by human-caused haze. To accomplish this broad goal, ARD, along with its collaborators and partners, monitors air quality at long-term sites and as part of short-term intensive studies. The data are analyzed and often integrated with air quality models to 1. determine the composition and level of air pollutants in and around park units to identify potential threats; 2. track temporal trends in the air pollutant levels to gauge the effectiveness of air resource management strategies, including responses to changing emissions, and to identify emerging threats; 3. understand the causal mechanisms of elevated pollutant levels in park units, including pollutant sources and transport; 4. inform air quality regulators, stakeholders, scientists, and the general public as to potential issues, causes, and solutions of air quality issues in national parks. The information obtained through these activities is critical to effectively communicate air quality issues to federal and state regulators and stakeholders, develop air quality policy positions within the NPS, and aid state and federal agencies in developing informed regulatory and voluntary strategies to mitigate air quality issues. As such, the information must be scientifically credible and defensible to withstand detailed scrutiny by others. To aid in these activities, ARD collaborates with scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) at Colorado State University (CSU) under the cooperative agreement “Assistance for Visibility Data Analysis and Image Display Techniques”. The primary purpose of this agreement is to conduct research into long-term and pressing air quality issues that impact park units, including visibility, nitrogen deposition, and ozone issues. The tasks in the cooperative agreement focus on quantifying the levels and composition of the pollutants impacting parks and identifying their sources and other causal mechanisms. This work involves the development of the science and infrastructure needed to address current and future air quality issues, such as improving or developing measurement and modeling methodologies to better understand and quantify the chemical, physical, and optical properties of pollutants and their behavior in the atmosphere. In addition to the applied research that contributes to the protection of air quality in national parks, CIRA scientists also support specific ARD goals. CIRA scientists are involved in the support of ARD monitoring networks though data quality assurance activities, analysis and reporting of data, and participating in the guidance of the monitoring network evolution due to changing needs and funding levels. They perform regional air quality modeling analyses to understand and predict source impacts on air quality in specific park units. CIRA scientists are also available to provide expertise and support to ARD personnel to accomplish specific ARD tasks or tasks related to specific park unit resources through requests to ARD.