Rice senior plays critical role in monitoring ozone

Rice senior plays critical role in monitoring ozone

BY JADE BOYD
Rice News staff

This year, as Texas environmental regulators prepare to implement the state’s latest plan to bring Houston into compliance with federal clean air standards, researchers from Rice University and Valparaiso University are conducting the first systematic survey of atmospheric ozone above Houston using weather balloon launches.

“Ours is the first study to look at ozone in each layer of the atmosphere above Houston,” said lead researcher Gary Morris, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Valparaiso and adjunct assistant professor in physics and astronomy at Rice. “Over the past year, we’ve seen that high levels of ozone extend much higher than previously believed, up to three or four kilometers in some instances.”

Photo by Gary Morris

Scott Hersey, a Sid Richardson College senior, holds a weather balloon before releasing it to take measurements of ozone in the Houston air. The Tropospheric Ozone Pollution Project launches balloons at Rice University, Stephen F. Austin State University, Lamar University, Texas A&M University and the University of Houston’s Sugar Land campus.

Started in mid-2004, the Tropospheric Ozone Pollution Project (TOPP) takes regular measurements of ozone from the ground up to 100,000 feet in the air using helium-filled weather balloons carrying radio-equipped instrument packs. TOPP was started with $40,000 in seed funding from Rice’s Shell Center for Sustainability and this year won a two-year, $100,000 grant from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The TCEQ funding pays for 80 launches, including daily flights this summer and next and biweekly launches the rest of the year.

“TCEQ is interested not only in characterizing the ozone above Houston, but also in finding out where that ozone ends up,” Morris said. “To that end, they’ve given us extra money to launch about 15 percent of our balloons from sites that are 80 to 100 miles from the city.”

TOPP researchers launched balloons this summer at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas A&M University in College Station, and the University of Houston’s campus in Sugar Land.

Prior to the TOPP, all long-term ozone monitoring in and around Houston was limited to surface measurements. Houston’s ozone problem is among the worst in the nation, due to the abundance of sunshine and petrochemical plants that release ozone-producing hydrocarbons into the air above the Houston Ship Channel.

TOPP provides an innovative and low-cost way to acquire critical scientific data on ozone behavior in the Houston area, but the project wouldn’t be possible without Rice undergraduate Scott Hersey, who’s earning dual degrees in civil and environmental engineering and in ecology and evolutionary biology. The senior from Sid Richardson College has overseen almost every flight in the 15-month study.

“Scott’s had a hand in collecting most of the data in TOPP,” Morris said. “It’s hard to overestimate the importance of consistency in a project like this; measurements must be taken regularly, no matter whether it’s a weekend or holiday or whether it’s 100 degrees outside or 30. Without Scott’s dedication, and his attention to detail, TOPP simply wouldn’t be possible.”

Hersey, who expects to graduate in May, spent the summer training Sid Richardson College sophomores Arash Shirvani and Steve Bryant to assist with future TOPP launches.

“We’ll be launching a lot more balloons next summer as part of the TCEQ’s Texas Air Quality Study,” Hersey said. “Scientists from many parts of the country will be coming to Houston to participate, and our work will become a part of that larger survey.”
Hersey said the research experience he’s gained on TOPP will benefit him as he applies to Ph.D. programs in atmospheric sciences this year.