June 29, 2005
Dale Jobes presented his MS Thesis Final Oral Defense on June 30th at 10:00am in the Ibrahim Seminar room, 1301 McGavran-Greenberg. Full details follow.Analyzing the Spatiotemporal Relationships of Ozone Exceedances, Transient High Ozone Events and Meteorological Factors using GIS

Ozone violations are complicated events in the Houston, Texas area that differ with respect to region, meteorology, and type of ozone violation. Three ozone violations (1-hour ozone exceedances, 8-hour ozone exceedances, and transient high ozone events) within different regions of Houston (west, central, east) occur at different times and under different circumstances. Meteorological variables also play an important role in the formation or lack of formation of ozone. Meteorological variables important in the formation of ozone are temperature, wind speed, wind direction, cloud cover, and precipitation. The Houston Ozone Warning System (HOWS) uses all these variables along with seasonal and hourly variables to forecast the likelihood of ozone violations in the Houston area on an hourly basis. HOWS has separate forecasts for different ozone violations that show the probability of ozone violations and their location. The 3-day forecast will allow emitters to plan inspections, tests, and emissions according to the HOWS. HOWS has been tested and compared to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) ozone model and the Schlink, et al. (2003) paper on ozone forecasting models for the year 2003. The comparisons were accomplished by using skill scores to compare the different forecasts. The skill scores were compared to the ozone maximum on the day for the Schlink paper models and the occurrence of violations daily for the TCEQ model. The HOWS model performed extremely well in comparison to both the Schlink paper models and the TCEQ model. All skill scores for the HOWS were above the median scores and in some cases above the maximum skill scores in the Schlink paper. Likewise, the HOWS forecast, so far, is more reliable than the TCEQ forecast concerning half of the ozone season. Future work will compare the entire HOWS forecast for the 2003 ozone season to the entire TCEQ forecast.

Committee:

Dr. Harvey Jeffries

Dr. Marc Serre

Dr. Jun Liang (GEOG)

For further information please contact Rebecca Riggsbee Lloyd by email at Rebecca_Lloyd@unc.edu

 

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