PSI reporting -- predicting the 8-hour maximum from the observed one-hour ozone maximum

Conference · Thu Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1998

OSTI ID:679460

Hunt, E; Charsirisakskul, K; Montoya, C ^[1]

---

1. Georgia Inst. of Tech., Atlanta, GA (United States)

One of the problems that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now facing is how to best communicate air pollution levels to the public. The principle way of doing this has been the use of the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI), which was enacted into law in 1979. The PSI is reported in every American city with populations greater than 200,000. The index is now used worldwide and has been applied in Southeast Asia to report on the effects of the fires in Indonesia. It was also used in the Middle East to report on the effects of the oil fires and to advise American and Allied military how to deal with the fires. This summer EPA changed the form of the ozone standard. The old ozone air quality standard is a daily one-hour maximum concentration of 0.120 parts per million. The new standard is a daily maximum 8-hour average of 0.080 parts per million. The new 8-hour standard is a tougher standard and more likely to be exceeded than the one-hour standard. A comparison of the diurnal patterns of the running 8-hour average and the one hour ozone levels shows that while the 8-hour average is still rising, the one hour average is falling. The EPA and the State and local air pollution control agencies would like to be able to predict the 8-hour average when the peak one hour average has been reached, instead of waiting to report a maximum PSI value associated with the 8-hour average after the hourly ozone values have declined for several hours. The purpose of this analysis is to see how well this can be done. In an attempt to analyze (and hopefully rectify) this problem, the authors used ozone data collected at a site in Massachusetts. This is one of approximately 1000 air monitoring sites collecting ozone data across the United States. This was one of the sites established in the ozone areas classified as serious, severe or extreme for ozone.

• OSTI ID: 679460
• Report Number(s): CONF-980632--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AIR POLLUTION
AIR POLLUTION MONITORING
DAILY VARIATIONS
ECOLOGICAL CONCENTRATION
FORECASTING
OZONE
STANDARDS