'Air' includes the areas of air quality and meteorology.
The Air Resources program assists field specialists in attaining the Chief's air priorities and manage resources from a healthy ecosystem perspective.
Air Quality
The Forest Service monitors the effects of air pollution
that may impair visibility, harm human health,
injure trees and other plants, acidify or cause unnatural
fertilization of streams and lakes, leach nutrients from
soils, and degrade cultural resources, like archeological
sites and historical buildings. Forest activities that
can affect air quality such as prescribed burning, ski
areas, and mining are also monitored to ensure compliance
with air regulations for human health and to monitor possible
impacts to natural resources. For more information about
the Forest Service and its role in protecting air quality,
visit Air Resource Management at www.fs.fed.us/air.
Air Quality Images
Fire Wise
News
Western Lakes Monitoring Workshop
Results of the Western Lakes Monitoring workshop maybe of interest if you have anything to do with soils, water, or fish especially in some of our wilderness areas.
As articulated in the summary document:
"The Air Resource Management Program of the USDA Forest Service held a workshop to address issues associated with air pollution impacts to sensitive waters in the western United States. The meeting participants included Forest Service air resource managers, hydrologists, researchers, contractors, academics, and representatives from other governmental agencies (e.g., NPS, USGS, and EPA). The objectives of the workshop were to:
- Assess our existing program to monitor lakes for adverse effects of atmospheric deposition
- Understand complementary efforts by other agencies and other programs within the FS
- Understand emerging threats including climate change, nutrient enrichment, and toxics
- Provide guidance on study design, parameters to monitor, and trends analysis
- Determine our future role"
Summary Document (2 pages; 141 KB)
Presentations - Full
Smoke & Dust
This page features web site links that track smoke
from wildfires and dust events.
Some require browser plugins to run animations.
General Sites for Disaster Information:
NOAA Disaster
Information Server A site for all sorts of disaster
information. Try out the special coverage and the 8 types
of disasters.
Center for Air Pollution
Impact and Trend Analysis Report and analysis
of the dust and fire events. The Asia - FarEast and Central-America
domains are good.
University
of Wisconsin site for GOES pictures This site
has pictures of Asian dust, also Florida Fires and Mexican
Fires with analysis.
Other sites that are tracking smoke from the Florida
fires:
NOAA
Trajectories and Smoke Plume Forecasts Provides
projections of ground level concentrations and forecasts
of smoke plumes. You can also get the NIFC Incident Management
Report from here.
NOAA
GOES Satellite Coverage of Florida fires Check
out the media advisory summary for other web sites. There
are also loops of satellite pictures.
NASA
Global Fire Monitoring Site NASA Goddard
site with access to different fire episodes (nice site,
needs animation plugin for some pages). Check out the
global vegetation fires from 1992 and 1993.
Asian Dust Event Sites (April 1998):
NASA
Animation of China Dust NASA site with animation
of dust moving over the Pacific Ocean and into California
and Nevada.