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UAVs Will Study Californian Smog
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."
The goal is to study smog and its consequences as well as better understand the sources of air pollution.
Airplanes?
Are UAVs better for this job then conventional manned aircraft?
UAVs make sense where the flight is into harms way, but this?
"The goal is to study smog and its consequences as well as better understand the sources of air pollution"
<tinfoilhat>
Oh, that's what they say... But let's just see if they don't get used for citizen surveillance as well... If they're already flying there, you know someone in power will ask for it.
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more crazies seeing UFOs
You must be GNU here.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Pay no attention to the government aircraft constantly above your heads. They are only there to study smog.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
You must not live in LA. Yes, most days are ok here (at least a vast improvement over the 70s), but there are still days you can see a visible brown haze. Improvements have been made but the problem is definitely not "solved".
IANAM(Meteorologist), but why do they need UAVs? Couldn't they just rig up a series of regular weather balloons?
After 5 years, and $10 million dollars invested on advanced UAV research, it has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the smog levels in LA are.... Really Bad.
Eschew Obfuscation
Los Angeles has it good compared to the entire San Joaquin Valley, Fresno in particular.
Walking out of the house at 5:30 in the morning (exercise to beat the heat), one notices that the air smells like someone just lit a firecracker. During the day, the haze is orange-brown and often so dense there is no visibility after half a mile.
The air is so bad, one asthmatic friend of mine who teaches at Fresno State had to move to Santa Cruz. He now commutes twice a week (2.5 hours one way). After his bike rides he'd come home and start hacking blood, the air was that bad.
I'm glad I was only visiting, but Fresno, Los Banos, and all of the infernal SJV has it bad.
Smog is a serious problem. (Not all of it is caused by internal combustion engines. A lot of it also comes from crop dusting the thousands of acres of fertile California Valley soil.)
blog
...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.