NARSTO EPA Supersite (SS) Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Meteorolgical Data

The data were collected on a continuous basis and were subsequently subjected to multiple cycles of data validation to ensure correctness and accuracy. The validated data was then averaged over a 5 minute interval to create the final data set. The data set is organized to provide a unique data file for any given day within the operating time duration.

Each file contains the variables temperature, relative humidity, mean horizontal wind speed (at 10.39m), horizontal resultant vector mean wind speed, mean horizontal wind speed (at 5.87m), mean horizontal wind angle, std deviation of the wind angle, precipitation, friction velocity, Obukhov length, sensible vertical heat flux, solar radiation, atmospheric pressure, virtual potential temperature, specific humidity and wind angle from sonic anemometer.

In addition to usual meteorological variables, this data set also provides information on turbulent mixing (parameterized by the friction velocity) and atmospheric stability (parameterized by the Obukhov length). The Baltimore Supersite collected high-quality ambient air quality measurements with unprecedented temporal resolution at an industrially influenced urban site and two intensive measurement campaigns. A data set of project results was constructed to take advantage of advanced multivariate statistical techniques.

Data were collected on the sources and nature of organic aerosol for the region, and large quantities of urban particulate matter (PM) were collected for retrospective chemical, physical, and biological analyses and for toxicological testing. These data provided important information on the potential health effects of particles to support exposure and epidemiological studies for enhanced evaluation of health outcome, pollutant, and source relationships.

The EPA PM Supersites Program was an ambient air monitoring research program designed to provide information of value to the atmospheric sciences, and human health and exposure research communities. Eight geographically diverse projects were chosen to specifically address the following EPA research priorities: (1) to characterize PM, its constituents, precursors, co-pollutants, atmospheric transport, and its source categories that affect the PM in any region; (2) to address the research questions and scientific uncertainties about PM source-receptor and exposure-health effects relationships; and (3) to compare and evaluate different methods of characterizing PM including testing new and emerging measurement methods.

NARSTO, which has since disbanded, was a public/private partnership, whose membership spanned across government, utilities, industry, and academe throughout Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The primary mission was to coordinate and enhance policy-relevant scientific research and assessment of tropospheric pollution behavior; activities provide input for science-based decision-making and determination of workable, efficient, and effective strategies for local and regional air-pollution management.

Data products from local, regional, and international monitoring and research programs are still available.