By Bill Simpson and Krista Heeringa Fine particulate matter pollution in high latitude cities like Fairbanks is a serious problem for the health of residents during winter. In addition to meteorological conditions that create strong inversions in Fairbanks during winter, chemical reactions among pollutants behave differently in cold, dark conditions …
By Yuhan Yang, Rodney Weber and Bill Simpson We often think about air quality in terms of how much particulate matter is floating around in the air we breathe. This makes sense as health studies consistently link breathing in particles to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. The real danger, however, might …
Using a mobile laboratory, we mapped pollution from downtown Fairbanks up Birch Hill.
The Fairbanks North Star Borough has bad air quality in winter due to low winds and intense temperature inversions that trap locally generated pollution. We cannot control the weather, which leaves controlling local pollution sources as the only option to clean the air.
Temperature inversions cause bad air days, but how shallow is the polluted layer on these stagnant days?
What is the air like inside a house when it is polluted outside? How is indoor air affected by activities inside?
By Nathan Kettle Fairbanks, North Pole, and surrounding areas frequently experience unhealthy levels of particulate matter in winter air. Our community has been working on addressing the linked issues of winter air pollution, affordable energy and wood burning for over a decade. But how exactly do people in North Pole …
Measurements of sulfur dioxide this winter show a dramatic reduction after fuel sulfur was reduced.
The Fairbanks winter air quality study (FairAir) is a part of an international consortium of more than twenty institutions that are organized under the Alaskan Layered Pollution and Chemical Analysis – 2022 (ALPACA-2022) scientific field study. The study was carried out in January and February, 2022, and details on participants, …
As a part of the UAF Discover Alaska seminar series, Bill Simpson presented “The Air We Breathe: Indoor Air Quality in Alaska”. You can view a recording of the event at this link.
