US Air Pollution Progress Is Slowing. Researchers Are Looking at Cities
Air pollution is falling, but the declines have started to lag. To examine how pollution varies across communities, a new project is pursuing more detailed measurements.
Buildings in Lower Manhattan shrouded in smoke from Canada wildfires in New York on June 7, 2023.
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/BloombergAt first glance, the backpack — army green with a white North Face logo — looks at home on the campus of City College of New York. That is until you notice the tubes rising three feet into the air from its front-right corner. Those are for monitoring air pollution.
The backpack’s three latched-together monitors, developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and 2B Technologies, track GPS information alongside measures of ozone and a type of air pollution known as PM2.5. Between late July and mid-August, City College volunteers donned the backpack to walk, bike and subway across pre-planned routes in Manhattan and the Bronx, mapping pollution along the way. Their goal: improve researchers’ understanding of how air pollution varies across communities and in different kinds of spaces.