Just when you thought you could head indoors to be safe from the air pollution that plagues the Salt Lake Valley, new research shows that elevated air pollution events, like horror movie villains, claw their way into indoor spaces.
Just when you thought you could head indoors to be safe from the air pollution that plagues the Salt Lake Valley, new research shows that elevated air pollution events, like horror movie villains, claw their way into indoor spaces. The research, conducted in conjunction with the Utah Division of Facilities Construction and Management, is published in Science of the Total Environment.
In a long-term study in a Salt Lake-area building, researchers found that the amount of air pollution that comes indoors depends on the type of outdoor pollution. Wildfires, fireworks and wintertime inversions all affect indoor air to different degrees, says Daniel Mendoza, a research assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and visiting assistant professor in the Department of City & Metropolitan Planning. The study is unique, Mendoza says, combining a long-term indoor air quality monitoring project with paired outdoor measurements and research-grade instruments.
“We all know about the inversions,” Mendoza says. “We all know how large of a problem wildfires are. But do we really know what happens when we’re inside?”
Read more at: University of Utah
Minute-by-minute outdoor and indoor air particulate matter measurements during an August 2018 wildfire event. (Photo Credit: Daniel Mendoza.)
