The data slicing and dicing is still a work in progress as I try to develop new questions to follow after creating different graphics to analyze at Mauna Loa.
This week I am so grateful for the experience of working at NOAA and the opportunities and knowledge that the office presents daily. The building is filled with scientists dedicated to researching questions about our world, and sometimes it is difficult to realize the incredible work that is happening when you are looking at the same dataset over and over. Yesterday all NOAA student interns had the pleasure of meeting air quality and ozone researcher Abigail Koss.
Koss is seeking information related to volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which in essence are important to the process of making ozone, and when there is a plethora of VOC in lower troposphere it becomes dangerous to public health, and presents other important changes that need to be studied. Koss found spikes in levels of ozone in a rural region in Utah which dwarfed the frequency and magnitude of ozone in LA county–pretty counter intuitive when we think about polluted air. In essence she found the oil and gas industry had loads of infrastructure in this rural Utah region, and due to the VOCs emitted from these sites, the ozone production is off the charts exceeding EPA limits often.
Most interesting to me was seeing the research in action, Koss recorded her flights on GoPro and diagrammed the plane and the other research she was part of on the flight. The ‘coolness’ factor in the research she and other NOAA scientists are undertaking inspire me and give me a warm feeling about science…ahhhh.
Excited to take advantage and keep meeting great scientists daily at NOAA.
-Alex
