Longmont Museum - What clear skies can teach us: A history of urban air quality
Stephen Leonardi via Pexels
7:00 – 9:00 pm MDT
Spring 2020. Streets were clear due to the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders. The skies were clear too…or were they? This unprecedented shift in human activity gave scientists a chance to test hypotheses about air quality in urban settings and ask questions about the contribution of various sources to pollutants, such as ozone and particulate matter, in the past, present, and future.
In her Explorer Series lecture, Dr. Kelley Barsanti will discuss her work in the Los Angeles Basin during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as decadal trends in urban air quality based on long-term and historic measurements.
Kelley Barsanti
Dr. Kelley Barsanti is a Scientist III at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR) in the Atmospheric Chemistry Observations and Modeling (ACOM) Laboratory. Prior to joining ACOM, she was an Associate Professor (tenured) at the University of California Riverside in the Department of Chemical & Environmental Engineering and the Center for Environmental Research & Technology. She has developed an independent and successful research program contributing comprehensive measurements of gaseous organic compounds, and building mechanistic models to explain laboratory and field observations of atmospherically relevant organic gases and particles. Such advancements are critical for improving the model representation of emerging pollutant sources under changing atmospheric conditions and mitigating the adverse impacts of air pollution. Much of her recent work has focused on emissions and chemistry of wildfires.