Wildfires & PM
Wildfire smoke is a mixture of air pollutants like PM2.5, NO2, ozone, aromatic hydrocarbons, or lead. Using the EPA Air Data website, Ms. Harer created an animated time-series map of daily PM2.5 across Minnesota for the dates 6/25/23 - 7/4/23.
Take a look at the key to see what the colors mean. What do you notice about how the air is moving?
Use the dataset in Tuva to look at PM2.5 and PM10 levels during the wildfires in June and July 2023.
Start by dragging "Date" to the X-axis
Then, drag "Daily Mean PM2.5" to the Y-axis
Click on the top menu bar "Line -> Line Graph by Category"
Do you see any extremes? What dates were they?
Now, drag "Daily Mean PM10" to the Y-axis
Do you see any extremes? What dates were they?
You can also look at if PM2.5 or PM10 is affected by precipitation.
Then click the settings gear and click "dual axis" to add another attribute to the right side.
Click and drag "Daily Total Precipitation" to the Y2-axis
Choose dates that you'd like to zoom into. Click the pencil next to "Date" and edit the dates of interest.
