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IAQM Webinar: Measuring air pollution with low-cost small sensors: Challenges and opportunities
Small sensors are increasingly being used to measure gases and particles in the atmosphere, as part of academic research and in citizen science projects. Their low cost, portability and low power requirements bring new measurement possibilities, for example to improve the spatial representation in air quality monitoring networks.
However, to deliver quantitative observations requires that sensor performances should be well-understood and characterised.
Furthermore, sensor behaviour depends on the environment of application. Tjarda Roberts, through research, has deployed small sensors at volcanoes where monitoring of gas emissions informs observatories about volcanic activity and eruption hazards. Alongside this she has deployed small gas and particle sensors to measure the high levels of urban pollution experienced in Fairbanks, Alaska, during the cold Arctic winter. These applications enable (and require) the characterisation of small sensor performances in “extreme environments” and can provide valuable insights to the processes underlying the pollution events.
Tjarda Roberts is a Research scientist at CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research). She obtained her PhD in Atmospheric Chemistry from the University of Cambridge in 2009, and undertook postdoctoral research at the Norwegian Polar Institute and a Guest Lectureship at the University Centre in Svalbard, before becoming a CNRS Research Scientist in 2016.
However, to deliver quantitative observations requires that sensor performances should be well-understood and characterised.
Furthermore, sensor behaviour depends on the environment of application. Tjarda Roberts, through research, has deployed small sensors at volcanoes where monitoring of gas emissions informs observatories about volcanic activity and eruption hazards. Alongside this she has deployed small gas and particle sensors to measure the high levels of urban pollution experienced in Fairbanks, Alaska, during the cold Arctic winter. These applications enable (and require) the characterisation of small sensor performances in “extreme environments” and can provide valuable insights to the processes underlying the pollution events.
Tjarda Roberts is a Research scientist at CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research). She obtained her PhD in Atmospheric Chemistry from the University of Cambridge in 2009, and undertook postdoctoral research at the Norwegian Polar Institute and a Guest Lectureship at the University Centre in Svalbard, before becoming a CNRS Research Scientist in 2016.