scholarly journals Long-Term Performance Assessment of Low-Cost Atmospheric Sensors in the Arctic Environment

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 1919 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Carotenuto ◽  
Lorenzo Brilli ◽  
Beniamino Gioli ◽  
Giovanni Gualtieri ◽  
Carolina Vagnoli ◽  
...  

The Arctic is an important natural laboratory that is extremely sensitive to climatic changes and its monitoring is, therefore, of great importance. Due to the environmental extremes it is often hard to deploy sensors and observations are limited to a few sparse observation points limiting the spatial and temporal coverage of the Arctic measurement. Given these constraints the possibility of deploying a rugged network of low-cost sensors remains an interesting and convenient option. The present work validates for the first time a low-cost sensor array (AIRQino) for monitoring basic meteorological parameters and atmospheric composition in the Arctic (air temperature, relative humidity, particulate matter, and CO2). AIRQino was deployed for one year in the Svalbard archipelago and its outputs compared with reference sensors. Results show good agreement with the reference meteorological parameters (air temperature (T) and relative humidity (RH)) with correlation coefficients above 0.8 and small absolute errors (≈1 °C for temperature and ≈6% for RH). Particulate matter (PM) low-cost sensors show a good linearity (r2 ≈ 0.8) and small absolute errors for both PM2.5 and PM10 (≈1 µg m−3 for PM2.5 and ≈3 µg m−3 for PM10), while overall accuracy is impacted both by the unknown composition of the local aerosol, and by high humidity conditions likely generating hygroscopic effects. CO2 exhibits a satisfying agreement with r2 around 0.70 and an absolute error of ≈23 mg m−3. Overall these results, coupled with an excellent data coverage and scarce need of maintenance make the AIRQino or similar devices integrations an interesting tool for future extended sensor networks also in the Arctic environment.

Atmosphere ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan R. Coffey ◽  
David Pfotenhauer ◽  
Anondo Mukherjee ◽  
Desmond Agao ◽  
Ali Moro ◽  
...  

Household air pollution from the combustion of solid fuels is a leading global health and human rights concern, affecting billions every day. Instrumentation to assess potential solutions to this problem faces challenges—especially related to cost. A low-cost ($159) particulate matter tool called the Household Air Pollution Exposure (HAPEx) Nano was evaluated in the field as part of the Prices, Peers, and Perceptions cookstove study in northern Ghana. Measurements of temperature, relative humidity, absolute humidity, and carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide concentrations made at 1-min temporal resolution were integrated with 1-min particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5) measurements from the HAPEx, within 62 kitchens, across urban and rural households and four seasons totaling 71 48-h deployments. Gravimetric filter sampling was undertaken to ground-truth and evaluate the low-cost measurements. HAPEx baseline drift and relative humidity corrections were investigated and evaluated using signals from paired HAPEx, finding significant improvements. Resulting particle coefficients and integrated gravimetric PM2.5 concentrations were modeled to explore drivers of variability; urban/rural, season, kitchen characteristics, and dust (a major PM2.5 mass constituent) were significant predictors. The high correlation (R2 = 0.79) between 48-h mean HAPEx readings and gravimetric PM2.5 mass (including other covariates) indicates that the HAPEx can be a useful tool in household energy studies.


Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 2790 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Di Antonio ◽  
Olalekan Popoola ◽  
Bin Ouyang ◽  
John Saffell ◽  
Roderic Jones

There is increasing concern about the health impacts of ambient Particulate Matter (PM) exposure. Traditional monitoring networks, because of their sparseness, cannot provide sufficient spatial-temporal measurements characteristic of ambient PM. Recent studies have shown portable low-cost devices (e.g., optical particle counters, OPCs) can help address this issue; however, their application under ambient conditions can be affected by high relative humidity (RH) conditions. Here, we show how, by exploiting the measured particle size distribution information rather than PM as has been suggested elsewhere, a correction can be derived which not only significantly improves sensor performance but which also retains fundamental information on particle composition. A particle size distribution–based correction algorithm, founded on κ -Köhler theory, was developed to account for the influence of RH on sensor measurements. The application of the correction algorithm, which assumed physically reasonable κ values, resulted in a significant improvement, with the overestimation of PM measurements reduced from a factor of ~5 before correction to 1.05 after correction. We conclude that a correction based on particle size distribution, rather than PM mass, is required to properly account for RH effects and enable low cost optical PM sensors to provide reliable ambient PM measurements.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (20) ◽  
pp. 12285-12312
Author(s):  
Sora Seo ◽  
Andreas Richter ◽  
Anne-Marlene Blechschmidt ◽  
Ilias Bougoudis ◽  
John Philip Burrows

Abstract. Satellite observations have shown large areas of elevated bromine monoxide (BrO) covering several thousand square kilometres over the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice regions in polar spring. These enhancements of total BrO columns result from increases in stratospheric or tropospheric bromine amounts or both, and their occurrence may be related to local meteorological conditions. In this study, the spatial distribution of the occurrence of total BrO column enhancements and the associated changes in meteorological parameters are investigated in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions using 10 years of Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2) measurements and meteorological model data. Statistical analysis of the data presents clear differences in the meteorological conditions between the 10-year mean and episodes of enhanced total BrO columns in both polar sea ice regions. These differences show pronounced spatial patterns. In general, atmospheric low pressure, cold surface air temperature, high surface-level wind speed, and low tropopause heights were found during periods of enhanced total BrO columns. In addition, spatial patterns of prevailing wind directions related to the BrO enhancements are identified in both the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice regions. The relevance of the different meteorological parameters on the total BrO column is evaluated based on a Spearman rank correlation analysis, finding that tropopause height and surface air temperature have the largest correlations with the total BrO vertical column density. Our results demonstrate that specific meteorological parameters can have a major impact on the BrO enhancement in some areas, but in general, multiple meteorological parameters interact with each other in their influence on BrO columns.


2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (8) ◽  
pp. 2005-2011
Author(s):  
Marin Rusanescu ◽  
Carmen Otilia Rusanescu ◽  
Gigel Paraschiv

In this paper we analyze the correlation between meteorological parameters (wind speed and direction, relative humidity, air temperature) and atmospheric pollutants in Bucharest during the cold period 26.02.2018-02.03.2018, which was based on the monitoring of the concentrations of nitrogen oxides, NO2, O3 and SO2 sulfur dioxide within 24 h and the occurrence of exceedances above the prescribed limit. It was found based on the results obtained that the wind direction influences not only the concentrations of pollutants but also the correlation between the pollutants. Traffic pollutants were at the highest concentration when the wind speed was low. We have found that the highest average concentration for NO2, NOx, NO, O3 occurred at 90% indicative humidity for vertical mixing of strong pollutants. Sulfur dioxide did not record exceeding over the limit standard in the analyzed period.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 270
Author(s):  
Wen-Cheng Vincent Wang ◽  
Shih-Chun Candice Lung ◽  
Chun-Hu Liu ◽  
Tzu-Yao Julia Wen ◽  
Shu-Chuan Hu ◽  
...  

Small low-cost sensing (LCS) devices enable assessment of close-to-reality PM2.5 exposures, though their data quality remains a challenge. This work evaluates the precision, accuracy, wearability and stability of a wearable particle LCS device, Location-Aware Sensing System (LASS, with Plantower PMS3003), which is 104 × 66 × 46 mm3 in size and less than 162 g in weight. Real-time particulate matter (PM) exposures in six major Asian transportation modes were assessed. Side-by-side laboratory evaluation of PM2.5 between a GRIMM aerosol spectrometer and sensors yielded a correlation of 0.98 and a mean absolute error of 0.85 µg/m3. LASS readings collected in the summer of 2016 in Taiwan were converted to GRIMM-comparable values. Mean PM2.5 concentrations obtained from GRIMM and converted LASS values of the six different transportation microenvironments were 16.9 ± 11.7 (n = 1774) and 17.0 ± 9.5 (n = 3399) µg/m3, respectively, showing a correlation of 0.93. The average one-hour PM2.5 exposure increments (concentration increase above ambient levels) from converted LASS values for Mass Rapid Transit (MRT), bus, car, scooter, bike and walk were 15.6, 6.7, −19.2, 8.1, 6.1 and 7.1 µg/m3, respectively, very close to those obtained from GRIMM. This work is one of the earliest studies applying wearable particulate matter (PM) LCS devices in exposure assessment in different transportation modes.


2011 ◽  
Vol 50 (11) ◽  
pp. 2267-2269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Stull

AbstractAn equation is presented for wet-bulb temperature as a function of air temperature and relative humidity at standard sea level pressure. It was found as an empirical fit using gene-expression programming. This equation is valid for relative humidities between 5% and 99% and for air temperatures between −20° and 50°C, except for situations having both low humidity and cold temperature. Over the valid range, errors in wet-bulb temperature range from −1° to +0.65°C, with mean absolute error of less than 0.3°C.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sora Seo ◽  
Andreas Richter ◽  
Anne-Marlene Blechschmidt ◽  
Ilias Bougoudis ◽  
John Philip Burrows

Abstract. Satellite observations have shown large areas of elevated BrO covering several thousand km2 over the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice region in polar spring. These enhancements of total BrO columns result from increases in stratospheric or tropospheric bromine amounts or both, and their occurrence may be related to local meteorological conditions. In this study, the spatial distribution of the occurrence of total BrO column enhancements and the associated changes in meteorological parameters are investigated in both the Arctic and Antarctic regions using 10 years of GOME-2 measurements in combination with meteorological model data. Statistical analysis of the data presents clear differences in the meteorological conditions between the 10 year mean and episodes of enhanced total BrO columns in both polar sea ice regions. These differences show pronounced spatial patterns. In general, atmospheric low pressure, cold surface air temperature, high surface-level wind speed and low tropopause heights were found during periods of enhanced total BrO columns. In addition, spatial patterns of prevailing wind directions related to the BrO enhancements are identified in both the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice region. The relevance of the different meteorological parameters for the total BrO column is evaluated based on a Spearman rank correlation analysis, finding that tropopause height and surface air temperature have the largest correlations with the total BrO vertical column density. Our results demonstrate that specific meteorological parameters can have a major impact on the BrO enhancement in some areas, but in general, multiple meteorological parameters interact with each other in their influence on BrO columns.


Author(s):  
Letícia C. da S. R. Freitas ◽  
Ilda de F. F. Tinôco ◽  
Richard S. Gates ◽  
Matteo Barbari ◽  
Márcia G. L. Cândido ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT The environmental monitoring in animal facilities that includes collected data storage in a robust, practical and feasible way is a constant challenge. The aim of this study was to develop a reliable data logger for monitoring the air temperature and air relative humidity of aviaries and to assess the adequacy of the design using commercially available reference standard instruments. The experimental data logger was installed together with a commercial data logger, a mercury thermometer and a calibrated Vaisala HMP110 air relative humidity probe in a meteorological shelter. Linear regression analysis was performed with the collected air temperature and air relative humidity to develop calibration equations. The Nash-Sutcliffe Index and the relative error were calculated to validate the experimental data logger. The air temperature and the air relative humidity calibration equations presented Nash-Sutcliffe of 0.993 and -0.281 for the commercial data logger, and 0.913 and 0.932 for the experimental data. The mean relative error of the air temperature readings was 3 and 1% and for air relative humidity 5 and 20%, for the experimental and commercial logger, respectively. The experimental data logger reliably stored all collected data without error to the micro-SD card. The experimental data logger can be considered low-cost and sufficiently accurate for monitoring air temperature and air relative humidity in aviaries, presenting field performance very close to the commercial data logger for air temperature measurement, and better performance than the commercial data logger for the measurement of air relative humidity.


Irriga ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-235
Author(s):  
Aureliano De Albuquerque Ribeiro ◽  
Aderson Soares De Andrade Júnior ◽  
Everaldo Moreira Da Silva ◽  
Marcelo Simeão ◽  
Edson Alves Bastos

COMPARAÇÃO ENTRE DADOS METEOROLÓGICOS OBTIDOS POR ESTAÇÕES CONVENCIONAIS E AUTOMÁTICAS NO ESTADO DO PIAUÍ, BRASIL*  AURELIANO DE ALBUQUERQUE RIBEIRO1; ADERSON SOARES DE ANDRADE JÚNIOR2; EVERALDO MOREIRA DA SILVA3; MARCELO SIMEÃO4 E EDSON ALVES BASTOS2 1Doutorando em Engenharia Agrícola, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Av. Mister Hull, s/n - Pici, bloco 804, 60455-760, Fortaleza - CE, [email protected] Embrapa Meio-Norte, Teresina, PI, [email protected], [email protected] Professor Adjunto II da Universidade Federal do Piauí, Campus Professora Cinobelina Elvas, Bom Jesus, PI, [email protected] Mestre em Agronomia: Solos e Nutrição de Plantas, Universidade Federal do Piauí, Campus Professora Cinobelina Elvas, Bom Jesus, PI, [email protected]*Extraído da dissertação de mestrado do primeiro autor  1 RESUMOO registro de elementos climáticos é efetuado por estações meteorológicas convencionais e automáticas. Porém, por questões operacionais e de custo, as estações automáticas estão substituindo as convencionais. Contudo, para que as séries de dados dessas estações sejam únicas, há a necessidade de estudos comparativos entre as duas estações. O estudo teve como objetivo comparar dados meteorológicos obtidos por estações convencionais (EMC) e automáticas (EMA) em municípios do Estado do Piauí (Paulistana, Picos, São João do Piauí, Floriano, Parnaíba e Piripiri). Os elementos meteorológicos avaliados foram: temperaturas do ar máxima (°C) mínima (ºC) e média (ºC), umidade relativa média do ar (%), velocidade do vento a 10 m (m s-1), precipitação pluviométrica (mm) e pressão atmosférica média (hPa). As comparações dos dados foram feitas por meio dos seguintes indicadores estatísticos: precisão (R2), erro absoluto médio (EAM), coeficiente de correlação (r), índice de concordância de Willmott (d) e índice de confiança (c). Os melhores ajustes dos dados foram constatados para a precipitação e pressão atmosférica; intermediários, para a temperatura do ar, umidade relativa do ar média e os piores, para a velocidade do vento. A umidade relativa média do ar foi o elemento analisado que mostrou as maiores diferenças entre a EMC e a EMA. Palavras-chave: Agrometeorologia, elementos climáticos, sensores. RIBEIRO, A. A.; ANDRADE JÚNIOR, A. S.; SILVA, E.M.; SIMEÃO, M.; BASTOS, E.A.COMPARISON OF METEOROLOGICAL DATA RECORDED BY CONVENTIONAL AND AUTOMATIC STATIONS IN PIAUÍ STATE, BRAZIL   2 ABSTRACTClimatic elements are recorded by both conventional and automatic weather stations. However, due to cost and operational issues, automatic stations are replacing the conventional. So that  data sets from these stations are unique, there is a need for comparative studies between the two types of stations. The aim of this study was to compare meteorological data obtained by conventional and automatic stations in towns of the State of Piauí, Brazil (Paulistana, Picos, São João do Piauí, Floriano and Piripiri).The meteorological elements evaluated were: maximum (°C) minimum (°C) and average (°C) air temperature, average relative humidity (%), wind speed at 10 m (m s-1), rainfall (mm) and average atmospheric pressure (hPa). Data comparison was by the following statistical indicators: precision (R2), mean absolute error (EAM), Pearson correlation coefficient (r), Willmott’s index of agreement (d) and confidence index (c).  The best data adjustments were observed for rainfall and atmospheric pressure; intermediates for the air temperature, average relative humidity and worst for the wind speed.  The air average relative humidity was the analyzed element that showed the greatest differences between EMC and EMA. Keywords: Agrometeorology, meteorological elements, sensors 


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