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Paper No. 47
Presentation Time: 8:00 AM-6:00 PM

MUCESS-SUPPORTED OZONE STUDIES ALONG THE TEXAS GULF COAST


BALIMUTTAJJO, Midar1, HROMIS, Angel2, VAUGHT-WRIGHT, Julie1, VIEYRA, Deysy1, IDOWU, Ayorinde1, MUSSELWHITE, Donald2 and MORRIS, P.A.3, (1)Dept of Natural Science, University of Houston-Downtown, 1 Main St, Houston, TX 77002, (2)Natural Science, University of Houston-Downtown, Dept of Natural Science, 1 Main St, Houston, TX 77002, (3)Natural Science, University of Houston-Downtown, 1 Main St, Houston, TX 77002, angelgrace11281@aol.com

The Minority University Consortium for Earth and Space Sciences (MUCESS) is an undergraduate atmospheric science research program funded by the National Science Foundation. The purpose of the program is to promote diversity within the geosciences by providing participating minority universities with the knowledge and means to perform a series of weather balloon launches designed to measure ozone profiles.

Students from the University of Houston-Downtown (UHD), Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York, and South Carolina State University attended a workshop in Paradox, NY in March of 2010 that gave students new to MUCESS the experience necessary to successfully execute weather balloon launches once they returned to their respective universities. This presentation will focus on the results from the workshop, as well as those obtained by UHD students after a series of solo balloon launches in the summer of 2010 at the Downtown Houston campus.

Ozone profiles were measured by launching a 600 gram weather balloon into the stratosphere that carried instrumentation capable of telemetrically transmitting data to a ground receiver in real time. UHD students were then able to analyze this data to determine the impacts of various atmospheric processes on ozone concentrations in both the troposphere and stratosphere. Some of the processes examined include the effects of troposphere fluidity, periodic downward mixing of stratospheric ozone with tropospheric ozone, the effects of weather on ground level ozone, the formation of pockets of ozone in the troposphere, and also any anthropogenic effects on the troposphere.

In addition to collaborating with MUCESS, UHD coordinates its balloon activities with those of the University of Houston main campus (UH) to gain a greater perspective on the ozone patterns existing in the Houston metropolitan area. Towards this end various other launch sites are under evaluation, including multiple sites along the Gulf Coast, which will complement data collected at UH.

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