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SEM image of soot
A scanning electron microscope image of soot, collected along a highway in Scottsdale, Arizona, as part of a study on the flow of air pollution in the Phoenix metro area. Dust kicked up by road traffic creates a large proportion of the particles, while others are the combustion products of gasoline or diesel fuel, sometimes in combination with dust. [One of four related images. See Next Image.]
More about this Image
Joe Fernando, a professor of engineering and director of the environmental fluid dynamics program at Arizona State University, studies the results of field and lab experiments to learn about the composition and flow of pollutants in urban areas. Fieldwork is conducted in both winter and summer because pollution patterns can very according to season.
Fernando is the lead investigator of two interdisciplinary pollution studies in the Phoenix metro area, originally supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation. The U.S. Department of Energy is providing additional funding for further analysis of the data. The intent of the project is to study the flow of air pollution in cities with complex terrain -- terrain with mountains and other irregular features.
The goal of the research is to study what's in the air and to understand and ultimately predict how it moves. ASU scientists use both lab experiments and mathematical modeling to understand the complex flow of pollutants in 3D over time. [Note: This study was done as part of the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-term Ecological Research Project (CAP-LTER), supported by NSF. CAP-LTER is an ongoing study of how humans interact with ecological systems in the Sonoran Desert of central Arizona.]
Credit: Hua Xin, Ph.D., Arizona State University
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