Overview
Background: Displaying data is an essential skill in environmental research. Creating graphs and tables of data helps researchers interpret their results. Graphs and tables are also an integral part of communicating science with your peers and the public at large. How you display your data depends on the data type and objectives of your research. In scientific literature a good graph or table can communicate your research to a reader without them needing to read the rest of the paper.
Goal: To use data on air quality to compare potential changes since the COVID-19 Shutdown started in March 2020.
Instructions: Use the NASA Giovanni (https://giovanni.gsfc.nasa.gov/giovanni/) tool to explore nitrogen oxide levels since the COVID-19 shutdown. You will create an account to be able to use this application.
1) Choose New York, and one other US state to compare air quality concentrations.
2) Select NO2 Tropospheric Column (30% cloud screened) measurements, and create Time Averaged Maps for both states, to compare the air quality during these time periods:
a) March 2019 and March 2020
b) June 2019 and June 2020
You will be making eight maps total – one map at each of your two chosen locations for each of these four time periods.
3) Download as a PNG file and display all figures below (total of 8 figures; 4 pts for each figure = 32 pts):
4) In a paragraph, compare and contrast the NO2 concentrations between the states, and try to think of reasons why there are/aren’t differences. (8 pts)