Recently Installed Sensor In Mississippi Aids Air Quality Monitoring

A sensor recently installed at The University of Southern Mississippi will allow Hattiesburg-area residents to help check air quality.

The university said in a news release that USM is one of three places in Mississippi to install a PurpleAir sensor as part of an initiative with NASA Langley, led by the University of Toledo.

The other Mississippi sites are in the northeastern part of the state and on the Gulf Coast.

Several states in the South — including Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and South Carolina — have several sensor sites.

Sherry S. Herron, associate professor emerita of science education at USM, collaborated with University of Toledo professor Kevin Czajkowski to get the sensor installed on the Hattiesburg campus. Herron has been USM’s GLOBE partner since 2005.

GLOBE.gov is the citizen-science and education outreach for NASA.

“With the launch of the NASA TEMPO satellite on air quality scheduled for December 2022, we are trying to engage more professors, K-12 teachers and students, and other citizen scientists across the United States in the project,” Herron said.

The TEMPO instrument is a UV-visible spectrometer that monitors air pollutants hourly across North America during daytime.

It collects high-resolution measurements of ozone, nitrogen dioxide and other pollutants, which should improve air quality forecasts.