CONA - Community Observation Networks for Air

Stories like this have been appearing in the press around the world recently: http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/80075184/timarus-air-pollution-the-worst-in-oceania-figures-reveal This has been triggered by the release of a global air quality database by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The data they have used (in the case of Timaru) actually comes from Environment Canterbury (ECan) and specifically the continuous monitoring site they operate in the town. It's just the same as the ECan site in the centre of our CONA pilot study town of Rangiora. Press in other countries have basically done the same thing - looked through the database to find the worst or most surprising results in their local area and done some international comparison. I'm sure many readers abroad have come across the NZ figures and gone "Timaru? Never heard of it!" Well they have now. But is this 'notoriety' justified? I've already responded to several enquiries asking me if...

In air quality lingo  we normally refer to small areas of increased pollutant concentrations as hot spots  but since this story is about the temperature  field I needed to use something else ... warm spots  will do. As part of the measurement campaign we deployed in Rangiora we not only used ODINs but also four weather stations (like the one on the picture) scattered around the town to explore small scale wind flows and how uniform or otherwise the temperature field is in the area. Before we dive too deep in the analysis, let's pause and look at the two kind of temperature sensors used here. First is the meteorological sites that have thoroughly calibrated and well housed thermometers, protected from the sunshine while the ODIN thermometers were ... well ... not perfectly housed (see image of the inside of an ODIN) and then put in plain sunlight attached to lamp posts (see image of ODIN attached to a lamp post). Now, don't despair! There is a reason why the ODIN tem...

Hopefully something more substantial than the fox! ... ( that song is still in my head after I let my kids get their hands on the radio!) [EDIT: Added missing link to full analysis script] Let's talk ODIN then ... Now that we have more data from the ODINs we can start to build answers to the questions: How uniform is the air pollution field in Rangiora? Is the plume of emissions recirculated under certain conditions? But there is a big caveat. The ODINs do not give us $PM_{10}$ and it cannot be directly compared to the measurements done by ECan. So ... let's dive in ... carefully. First, let's review where we installed the ODINs. Our original intention was to locate them in two west-to-east lines, one to the north of the town and another one to the south. We were fortunate to be able to use lamp posts for our deployments and Sally and Sam managed to get them pretty close to where we wanted them. This map shows the location of ECan's air quality stati...