SALT LAKE CITY – A new tool developed with the help of a University of Utah professor to help monitor air pollution and teach people about the air they breathe.
The “Air Tracker”, introduced earlier this month by the Environmental Fund, is a unique tool that allows online users to track air pollution around them.
One of the experts who helped develop this cutting-edge technology was Professor John Lin of the University of Utah, who works in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences.
“We have had a research tool for monitoring air for a long time, for decades, but its use has many obstacles, we run it on university supercomputers and a lot of technical tools are needed to run it. that, ”Lin explained. “However, the Environmental Fund had a great idea to try to make this tool available to the average citizen.”
Air Tracker relies on STILT, which stands for Stochastic Time-Inverted Lagrangian Transport Model, as well as weather forecast models to predict the probability of a pollution path.
“So this tool provides a way to monitor the air,” Lin said. “So what the tool is basically doing is tracking the air moving back in time and then marking the area of the potential source of pollution in your area.”
This technology is so new that it is currently being introduced in only three cities; Salt Lake City, Houston and Pittsburgh.
Lin hopes that people in Utah will use this new tool to learn more about the air they breathe.