by Angela Guess
The Environmental Protection Agency has taken steps to improve its data modeling efforts. According to a recent article, “The EPA today announced a more up to the minute refinement of the decades-old method used in gathering its data: the Community Multi-scale Air Quality model (CMAQ) that the National Weather Service uses as the model to produce daily forecasts for ozone air quality and other harmful health effects of the use of dirty energy. The new modeling improves forecasting ability, in predicting for example the daily danger level of smog over natural geological ‘basins’ like Los Angeles.”
The article continues, “New data or old, however, it might be a moot point. The Republican majority in congress last month passed a bill to prevent EPA from even collecting data on the health effects of air pollution (in order to assess the costs of not cleaning up) with the TRAIN Act, passed by party line vote.”
It adds, “Currently, scientists use CMAQ to estimate air quality levels at the regional and national scales. CMAQ uses meteorology and emissions data to evaluate air pollution trends and distribution. The system models multiple air pollutants, which include ozone, particulate matter, and air toxics to help air quality regulators determine the best air quality management scenarios for their communities, regions, and states.”
photo credit: EPA
