6/13/2010 Caltech is base for $20 million air quali…

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Caltech is base for $20 million air quality study - the
Presented Environmental
By: Consultants state's most comprehensive ever
Air Quality
Permitting &
By Em m a Galle gos, Sta ff W rite r
Po ste d: 06/05/2010 07:11:27 AM PDT

Most View ed Most Emailed

1. Principal Boccia is
leaving Blair
International
Baccalaureate for top
job at Mammoth
2. In-N-Out coming to
Monrovia
3. Pasadena school, city
officials will discuss
facilities sharing
4. All Saints ready for
round two in expansion
battle
5. Perspectives: Staying
Catholic amid the
church's scandals
6. Pasadenans celebrate
city's 124th birthday C arly R obinson, le ft, PhD candida te e x plaining he r re se arch to David W . Fahe y, R e se arch Physicist
7. Community activist who C he m ical Scie nce s Divison U.S. De partm e nt of C om m e rce , National O ce anic & Atm osphe ric
inspired Pasadena Adm inistration Earth Syste m Re se arch Laboratory (NO AA), and Jose -Luis Jim e ne z, Associate
Profe ssor, Fe llow of C IRES De partm e nt of C he m istry and Bioche m istry C oope rative Institute for
police policy slain
R e se arch in Environm e ntal Scie nce s Unive rsity of C olorado at Boulde r at C alte ch Thursday June 3,
8. Santa Anita loses 2010. (SGVN/Staff Photo by W a lt Mancini)
Breeders' Cup 2011
over pending Oak Tree PASADENA - At a ground station at Caltech, funnels at the top of some scaffolding suck up air like a vacuum.
lease
9. Plastic surgery expert to Minute particles in the air register on computers inside a row of trailers that will remain on an empty lot at
speak at Crowell Library Caltech until mid-June.
10. Sheriff's say man
involved in shootout with Inside one of them, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist Bill Kuster points to a graph
deputy took his own life showing how carbon monoxide inches up in the morning.

"We see rush hours and stuff like that," Kuster said, pointing to a spot in the graph when a construction truck
working on campus drives past.

Scientists from all over the country are flocking to California this month to conduct the largest study ever on
M ore News the state's air quality.

Plastic surgery expert to To do it, they've

speak at Crowell Library
Principal Boccia is leaving launched a fleet of planes and a ship and have built two
Blair International Photo Gallery temporary measuring stations - one at Caltech and the other in
Baccalaureate for top job the Central Valley.
at Mammoth $20 m illion CalTech air quality study
Day family recalls Nixon Caltech professor John Seinfeld called the project "the most
Future remains in comprehensive experiment aimed at understanding Los Angeles
question for domestic air quality ever conducted."
violence shelters in
Whittier, San Gabriel The study will measure greenhouse gases like ozone and
Valley methane and other microscopic pollutants in the air.
World Cup brings out
The federal government has kicked in $15 million for the
hidden heritage
statewide project and the state has ponied up $5 million.
Volunteer now! Teen
volunteers needed to aid
The study will also investigate why Los Angeles' air has been
Whittier library reading
club improving so much more quickly than the Central Valley's, said
Steve Lambert: Tea
Bart Croes, chief of research for the California Air Resources Board.
partiers may be needed
wake-up call Cities in Los Angeles and Kern Counties still have
Citrus College celebrates
some of the worst air pollution in the nation, even
Advertisement
more than 400 graduates though they have improved dramatically since the
1960s, according to Croes.
Hundreds earn degrees Los Angeles had some of the worst levels of ozone
from Pasadena seminary
pasadenastarnews.com/ci_15234050 1/4
6/13/2010 Caltech is base for $20 million air quali…
from Pasadena seminary pollution ever recorded in the 1960s, but those
levels have dropped about 80 percent since. That
Pasadenans celebrate hasn't been the case across the Grapevine in the
city's 124th birthday Central Valley, where the same statewide controls
reduced ozone pollution by only about 50 percent,
Croes said.

Regional air districts are constantly taking rough

measurements of air pollution, but the new study
will tell researchers exactly where the pollution is
coming from - and whether it's even coming from the
United States, Croes said.

To do so, the project is using a wide variety of

measuring tools.

At the top of Millikan Library at Caltech, scientists have been shooting a beam of light at the San Gabriel
Mountains to measure what's in the air.

Flights have been crisscrossing the state and taking measurements of the air from San Diego to Northern
California and east into the Central Valley and out to the desert.

NOAA launched a ship that has been measuring the air along the coast from San Diego up to the Bay Area and
into the Sacramento Delta.

The study's initial results will be published in about a year, Croes said.

"The instruments can measure the air with a level of detail and accuracy that wasn't possible three decades
ago," Seinfeld said.

Pollution from gasoline has a distinct fingerprint. So does the pollution from fires, fertilizers, soil, animals and
factories, officials with the project said.

If you know where the pollution is coming from, it's easier to figure out how to control it, Seinfeld said.

"You can find out how much of the pollution in L.A. is the result of ships offshore - that's one aspect. And of
course, there's the age-old question of how much is coming from cars, trucks and industry," Seinfeld said.

emma.gallegos@sgvn.com

626-578-6300, ext. 4444

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