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Accounting for Ozone—Study first to quantify impact of oil and gas emissions on Denver’s ozone prob…
http://cires.colorado.edu/news/accounting-ozone[font face=Serif][center][font size=5]Accounting for Ozone[/font]
[font size=4]Study first to quantify impact of oil and gas emissions on Denver’s ozone problem[/font]
Monday, August 8, 2016[/center]
[font size=3] The first peer-reviewed study to directly quantify how emissions from oil and gas activities influence summertime ozone pollution in the Colorado Front Range confirms that chemical vapors from oil and gas activities are a significant contributor to the region’s chronic ozone problem.
Summertime ozone pollution levels in the northern Front Range periodically spike above 70 parts per billion (ppb), which is considered unhealthy—on average, 17 ppb of that ozone is produced locally. The new research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, shows that oil and gas emissions contribute an average of 3 ppb of the locally produced ozone daily, and potentially more than that on high-ozone days.
“By combining nearly 50,000, high-precision measurements of VOCs in Colorado’s Front Range with an equally detailed model, we’ve been able to parse out the role of oil and gas,” said Erin McDuffie, the study’s lead author and a scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder, working in the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. “We expect this technique to help us better understand what factors are contributing to air quality challenges elsewhere in the West.”
…
The northern Front Range has seen a big boom in oil and gas activity in recent years: The number of active wells in central Colorado’s Wattenberg gas field nearly doubled to over 27,000 between 2008 and 2015, according to state data. Colorado's Air Pollution Control Division experts use a model to identify the sources of ozone formation at various monitoring locations on various days. Considering all sources of emissions, they find that in the Northern Front Range area, the oil and gas sector can be a significant source of VOCs for ozone pollution formation, depending on meteorology and transport.
…[/font][/font]
[font size=4]Study first to quantify impact of oil and gas emissions on Denver’s ozone problem[/font]
Monday, August 8, 2016[/center]
[font size=3] The first peer-reviewed study to directly quantify how emissions from oil and gas activities influence summertime ozone pollution in the Colorado Front Range confirms that chemical vapors from oil and gas activities are a significant contributor to the region’s chronic ozone problem.
Summertime ozone pollution levels in the northern Front Range periodically spike above 70 parts per billion (ppb), which is considered unhealthy—on average, 17 ppb of that ozone is produced locally. The new research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, shows that oil and gas emissions contribute an average of 3 ppb of the locally produced ozone daily, and potentially more than that on high-ozone days.
“By combining nearly 50,000, high-precision measurements of VOCs in Colorado’s Front Range with an equally detailed model, we’ve been able to parse out the role of oil and gas,” said Erin McDuffie, the study’s lead author and a scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder, working in the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. “We expect this technique to help us better understand what factors are contributing to air quality challenges elsewhere in the West.”
…
The northern Front Range has seen a big boom in oil and gas activity in recent years: The number of active wells in central Colorado’s Wattenberg gas field nearly doubled to over 27,000 between 2008 and 2015, according to state data. Colorado's Air Pollution Control Division experts use a model to identify the sources of ozone formation at various monitoring locations on various days. Considering all sources of emissions, they find that in the Northern Front Range area, the oil and gas sector can be a significant source of VOCs for ozone pollution formation, depending on meteorology and transport.
…[/font][/font]
