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Visitor to the booth at WeatherFest, Credit: AMS
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AMS President, Peggy Lemone, Credit: AMS
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AMS Experiment
PSD researcher, colleagues set up equipment to measure human impact on meeting environment
Barb DeLuisi, Winter 2011
Peggy LeMone, president of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), had
an inspiration for this year's annual conference. Since the theme was
about communicating climate, she wanted an informal, real-time experiment
run during the conference, to demonstrate how people affect the
environment.
At the most basic level, people modify immediate surroundings simply by
body heat and breathing. At another level, our buildings have great impact:
to keep conditions comfortable indoors, most buildings must get rid of
excess heat through HVAC (Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning)
systems. Collectively, buildings help make cities warmer than rural
areas.
LeMone asked meteorologists Dan Wolfe of ESRL's Physical Sciences Division
and Collin Daly of Campbell Scientific, both of them experts in creating
and deploying meteorological instruments, to develop a monitoring system
to measure room conditions and changes during AMS.
"We've used similar monitoring systems for research experiments on land,
ships and aircraft to study boundary layer and climate processes," said
Wolfe. Components for the indoor analysis system were provided by Vaisala
and LICOR, integrated by Campbell Scientific, and tested by Wolfe and Daly.
LeMone also wanted to engage students attending the conference by
involving them in the study. About 10 students volunteered, learning from
Wolfe and Daly how to assemble equipment and monitor data.
Two identical systems measured temperature, relative humidity, and CO2 data
at different locations throughout the convention center. Data were
transmitted by cell phone in real time to Campbell Scientific, and made
available on the company's website and via smart phone; all conference
attendees had access.
The system was first tested at the AMS exhibit during WeatherFest, an
interactive science fair open to the public. "Students working in the booth
enthusiastically explained to visitors how our system operated and our
objective," said Wolfe.
The primary monitoring location was at the Presidential Forum, with about
1,400 participants. Calculations before the event showed the potential
for significant increases in temperature and CO2 readings, not factoring
in the HVAC. To make things more interesting, the HVAC system was
discreetly turned off for 25 minutes during the Forum. This was long enough
to see a change in the data signal, without a major impact on people's
comfort.
At the request of LeMone, Professor David Sailor of Portland State
University gave a talk the next day at a Town Hall meeting on the "Impact
of Human Occupancy at the 2011 AMS Annual Convention." Sailor didn't have
much time to analyze the data before his talk, but as expected, CO2 and
temperature levels fluctuated as occupancy changed. When the HVAC was
shut off, the temperature and CO2 level rose more rapidly – with CO2
reaching nearly 1100 ppm (ambient atmospheric levels average about 390 ppm).
"Neither CO2 nor water vapor nor temperature rose as much as we thought
it would," said Sailor, "because the room was still in 'communication' with
other parts of the building and created suction."The room wasn't
completely sealed off, allowing air to rush in through open doors and
adjacent spaces, decreasing the expected impact.
At the end of the Presidential Forum, session surveys were handed out that
included questions about room acoustics and temperature. More than 500
surveys were returned and are in the process of being collated and
reviewed. Sailor said that thus far, there is a trend suggesting that the
conference rooms tend to be too cool, which could mean wasted energy and
money.
Sailor will attend a different conference at the same venue in the near
future, and may revisit the experiment. In the coming months, he hopes to
do a detailed analysis of the data and perhaps publish the results in the
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
Many conference attendees who Wolfe spoke with thought the experiment was a
great idea. "We were able to accomplish more than initially anticipated,
because of the efforts of all those involved," said Wolfe.