Measurements of Smoke, Ozone, and Inversions in the Lake Tahoe Basin

As part of a larger project to develop meteorological data and air quality tools to aid in burn day decisions for prescribed fires in the Lake Tahoe Basin, we participated in a large air quality project designed to give better understanding of the Tahoe basin air pollution events. Several weather stations and PM2.5 and ozone real- time UV-absorption monitors were deployed in multiple transects ranging from near the lake shoreline to the ridgeline of the basin. The weather stations and monitors were placed in the field from late June to early July 2010. This late deployment was due to a heavy spring snow cover that did not allow access to the high country in the spring. The stations remained in the field until the fall snows start. Data collected during this study were used to assess inversion and pollution events within the lake basin. With the collected continuous data we are starting to characterize the smoke, ozone, and inversion layers over the course of the burn season, and to compare the observational data with model output.