The latest measurements come from a new federally funded, national monitoring network called ASCENT, begun last year to measure a wide range of air pollutants in real time. The readings from the Los Angeles area fires were captured at the network’s monitoring station in Pico Rivera, several miles from the active fires.

We are pleased to announce that the hybrid 2023 ASCENT Workshop will be held at Georgia Tech on May 25-26, 2023.
 
The Atmospheric Science and Chemistry mEasurement NeTwork (ASCENT) is a new comprehensive, high time-resolution, long-term monitoring network in the U.S. for characterization of aerosol chemical composition and physical properties. Leveraging existing networks, a total of 12 sites are being established across the country, including rural/remote/background, urban, and tribal sites.

Registration is requested here by March 24, 2023.

Georgia Institute of Technology Professor Nga Lee “Sally” Ng has earned a $12 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure program to provide high time-resolution (every 1 to 15 minutes), long-term measurements of the properties of atmospheric particulates known as aerosols, which have significant effects on health and climate change.

The award will establish a network of 12 sites around the United States, including locations in national parks and some of the country’s largest cities. Each will be outfitted with state-of-the-art instruments for characterizing the properties of aerosols. These sites will form what is officially called the Atmospheric Science and mEasurement NeTwork (ASCENT).

Data from ASCENT will allow researchers to address a variety of questions about how the composition and abundance of aerosols are changing, such as how the modernization of electrical production (coal to natural gas to renewable) and transportation (gasoline to electric vehicles) affect air pollution and climate-relevant variables.