The Texas 2000 Air Quality Study

The Airborne Ozone Lidar in place on the DC-3.

The Texas 2000 Air Quality Study is the current campaign in a series of oxidant/aerosol studies which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) , the U.S. Department of Energy, and a number of university scientists have cooperatively conducted under the umbrella of the Southern Oxidants Study (SOS) in affiliation with the North Atlantic Research Strategy for Tropospheric Ozone (NARSTO). Researchers from these organizations are joined by the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) and local communities in undertaking the largest air quality study ever done in the State of Texas.

The Houston-Galveston urban area is the focus of the study because it has significant ozone pollution problems and possible difficulties meeting new national particulate matter standards, and because its unique chemical and meteorological features make it important from a scientific perspective.

The goal of the study is to provide a better understanding of the chemical, meteorological, and atmospheric transport processes that determine ozone and fine particle distributions, and to develop new scientific understanding that will assist policy-makers in devising optimal management strategies for ozone and particulate matter.

Scientists from NOAA/ETL are contributing to the Texas 2000 Air Quality Study by deploying ground-based and airborne lidars, a windprofiler, and a surface flux station. These instruments are being used to study the meteorological conditions responsible for the local and regional transport of pollutants and will provide critical information about the spatial distribution and time evolution of ozone and aerosol concentrations.