Local Air Quality

Unpublished. Written in 2009.

To comply with federal air quality standards, the Ambient Monitoring Program (AMP) collects and reports data on air pollution levels in Georgia. This program relies on multiple research locations throughout Georgia to gather the necessary data and, in the internet description of the program's database, the names and purposes of the monitoring sites are provided. In Kennesaw, for instance, an air quality monitoring site was started on Feb. 07, 1999 that collects data on ozone concentrations in the atmosphere.¹ In the program's Atlanta Smog Alert Statistics website, smog alert forecasts are compared to observed air quality conditions for 2009. The site has reported relatively low Air Quality Index (AQI) levels this year, with most of the days observed as being in the moderate to good AQI range. The forecasts, however, tend to predict lower AQI than is observed.²

The home page for the AMP provides daily data on the concentrations of various air pollutants, including the raw ozone data for the current and past three days:

Date	Time	Raw Ozone
11/18/09	4:00 pm	0.013 ppmv3
11/17/09	12:00 noon	0.031 ppmv4
11/16/09	4:00 pm	0.059 ppmv5
11/15/09	4:00 pm	0.053 ppmv6

Table 1. Highest levels of ozone reported for each day are shown.

As can be seen in Table 1, the ozone levels are within the moderate to good AQI range as was reported in the smog alert statistics. In addition, the peak levels tend to occur near the same time, 4:00 pm, normally.⁷

1 Zimmer-Dauphinee, S. Ambient Monitoring Program: Ambient Monitoring Program Database Description. http://www.air.dnr.state.ga.us/amp/data_descrip.html (accessed Nov. 18, 2009).

2 Zimmer-Dauphinee, S. Ambient Monitoring Program: Atlanta Smog Alert Statistics in 2009. http://www.air.dnr.state.ga.us/smogforecast/stats.php (accessed Nov. 18, 2009).

3 Zimmer-Dauphinee, S. Ambient Monitoring Program: Current Ambient Ozone Concentrations around Georgia. http://www.air.dnr.state.ga.us/tmp/today/amp_O3.html (accessed Nov. 18, 2009).

4 Zimmer-Dauphinee, S. Ambient Monitoring Program: Current Ambient Ozone Concentrations around Georgia. http://www.air.dnr.state.ga.us/tmp/today-1/amp_O3.html (accessed Nov. 18, 2009).

5 Zimmer-Dauphinee, S. Ambient Monitoring Program: Current Ambient Ozone Concentrations around Georgia. http://www.air.dnr.state.ga.us/tmp/today-2/amp_O3.html (accessed Nov. 18, 2009).

6 Zimmer-Dauphinee, S. Ambient Monitoring Program: Current Ambient Ozone Concentrations around Georgia. http://www.air.dnr.state.ga.us/tmp/today-3/amp_O3.html (accessed Nov. 18, 2009).

7 Zimmer-Dauphinee, S. Ambient Monitoring Program. http://www.air.dnr.state.ga.us/amp/ (accessed Nov. 18, 2009).