Real-time Ozone Measurements During the 2015 Great Salt Lake Summer Ozone Study

Researchers from several Utah universities and the Utah Division of Air Quality conducted the 2015 Great Salt Lake Summer Ozone Study (GSLSO3S) to assess the distribution of ozone in the boundary layer around and near the Great Salt Lake. To accomplish this task, a mix of both stationary and mobile surface ozone sensors were deployed across the region of interest. Several of the in-situ sites were deployed with real-time communications or adjacent to existing weather stations with real-time capabilities. Data for the in-situ sites were collected routinely by software developed by MesoWest (http://mesowest.utah.edu) and made available on web products specifically developed for the ozone study (http://meso2.chpc.utah.edu/gslso3s) to access real-time and archived data.

Several mobile ozone units were also constructed with real-time cellular communication capabilities. These mobile units were deployed in several vehicles, on a public transit light rail car, and on a news helicopter. Software was developed to collect the mobile observations and display them on the ozone study web products with minimal latency. Several interesting ozone event episodes during intensive observation periods, when all mobile units were deployed, are displayed for interesting ozone event episodes.