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UAVs Will Study Californian Smog

Posted by timothy on from the with-their-little-UN-logos dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "The California Energy Commission is funding a research effort named CAPPS, short for California AUAV Air Pollution Profiling Study. CAPPS will use autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (AUAVs) to gather meteorological data as the aircraft fly through clouds over Southern California. The goal is to study smog and its consequences as well as better understand the sources of air pollution. The first flights started in April 2008 and data collection will continue until January 2009. But read more for additional references and photos of these autonomous unmanned aircraft."

3 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Heisenberg -- UAV create smog by redelm · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The irony is heavier than the air: UAVs have small, high intensity [low bypass] jet-turbine engines which create a fair bit of NOx [smog] themselves.

  2. Why UAVs? by Tabernaque86 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    IANAM(Meteorologist), but why do they need UAVs? Couldn't they just rig up a series of regular weather balloons?

  3. Re:Smog is way down, why is this needed? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...t fly into an LA area airport on many days, and your will actually descend through a yellowish-brown layer... The actual number of days in "many days" is in the 20-30 range now. That's down from 200+ days in the past.

    I live in the Inland Empire which gets the smog from LA. Lately, I've been in the habit of taking a morning walk at a park in the foothills of the mountain range that forms a northern border of the greater LA area. That puts me at about the same elevation as the smog layer.

    About half the time there's too much haze (white fogginess) to see the smog layer. On days without haze, the smog layer (brown fogginess) is usually visible. Some days it's hard to ignore, other days you have to look for it - but it's rare for it to be gone completely (maybe on Sundays or holidays).

    Also, the uncovered porch where I live develops a substantial layer of tarry black particulate matter matter after even just a day or so. I assume that's soot from vehicle exhaust but I haven't done a detailed analysis.

    Anyway, I'm hoping to move out of the Inland Empire and (lack of) air quality is one of my top three reasons for moving.