Considering that there are protected areas that have closed around the world due to the COVID 19 pandemic, our project focuses on examining the impact on air quality by reducing human trafficking in these natural environments. Specifically, we selected a large natural environment called Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, which is close to Wuhan, the region where this pandemic started. We analyzed the chemical compounds involved in acid rain since our hypothesis leads to the fact that the reduction of human traffic in those areas, implied an increase in energy production, and therefore the industrial gases emitted into the environment evolved without regulations against acid rains.
What inspired our team to choose this challenge was mainly our common concern for the environment and ecology, which should not be forgotten in these times of pandemic. For this reason, we observed the conditions of the planet by focusing on fossil fuel emissions. To do so, the data from the space agency was essential, since we accessed the data provided by the MERRA-2 and AURA satellites within the WorldView platform of NASA and so, we obtained data of the levels of nitric acid, carbon dioxide sulfide, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, and the steam to precipitate from January 2017 to the present day.
Throughout the project, we use various basic computing tools such as Word and PowerPoint. Additionally, we use Microsoft Teams for remote communication. However, we also accessed programming languages
Such as python to process the data exported from NASA's WorldView platform. And we host the files in a GitHub repository and then compile the program in Google Colab. Finally, we publish the results on a page with a domain provided by Porkbun and edited by Weebly.
The problems we had as a team were mainly not knowing what data to start analyzing, as they gave us access to a lot of information that we had never worked with. Furthermore, the interaction between the team members was not the same remotely as if it had been in person. Furthermore, it was difficult for us to come up with a hypothesis with which to start and, finally, none of us had previously used the resources provided by NASA, and we learned about the challenge the day before, so we did not have enough time to explore the tools with detail.
On the other hand, we had several achievements as a team, such as demonstrating a solid hypothesis after much research, also simulating and demonstrating the general patterns of carbon monoxide and nitric acid, the possible prediction of increased pH of rain acid in certain months in China.
Despite the fact that due to COVID, the concentrations of the chemical compounds decreased considerably, the calculated averages show that only one compound had a significant decrease compared to the other years, but the others remained relatively stable.
Project website:
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[5] Mohnen, V. A., Chameides, W., Demerjian, K. L., Lenschow, D. H., Logan, J. A., McNeal, R. J., Penkett, S. A., Platt, U., Schurath, U., & da Silva Dias, P. (1985). Tropospheric Chemistry. In Atmospheric Ozone, 1985: Assessment of our Understanding of the Processes Controlling its Present Distribution and Change: Vol. I. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csl/assessments/ozone/1985/vol1/chapter4.pdf