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- Written by: NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
Scientists from NOAA, NASA and 21 universities from three countries are deploying state-of-the-art instruments in multiple, coordinated research campaigns this month to investigate how air pollution sources have shifted over recent decades.
Since the 1970s, U.S. scientists and environmental regulators made significant strides in reducing air pollution by cleaning up tailpipe and smokestack emissions.
Yet levels of two of the most harmful types of pollution, ground-level ozone and fine particulates, have decreased only modestly in recent years. Both still contribute to the premature deaths of more than 100,000 Americans every year.
“This is an unprecedented scientific investigation — in scope, scale and sophistication — of an ongoing public health threat that kills people every year,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, PhD. “No one agency or university could do anything like this alone.”
Using multiple satellites, seven research aircraft, vehicles, dozens of stationary installations — even instrumented backpacks — scientists will measure air pollution from sources that include transportation, industrial facilities, agriculture, wildfires and consumer products such as paint, pesticides and perfumes.
The data will be scrutinized, analyzed and run through sophisticated chemical and weather models by scientists and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in an effort to improve air pollution forecasts. Findings will be shared with state and local environmental officials to inform decisions about the most effective ways to reduce air pollution.
The data will also be used to evaluate the first observations made by NASA’s groundbreaking TEMPOoffsite link instrument — the first geostationary space-borne sensor to continuously measure air pollution across North America. Lessons learned will aid the development of the new GeoXO satellites being jointly developed by NOAA and NASA.
Probing the causes of persistent pollution
EPA, which sets national air quality regulations, currently lists about 200 U.S. counties as failing to meet the 8-hour ozone standard established in 2015. Sixty-nine counties are failing to meet the standard for fine particulates, or PM2.5, set in 2006. After decades of decline in ground-level ozone and fine particulate matter in the U.S., downward trends have slowed in recent years.
Scientists from four NOAA research labs, led by the Chemical Sciences Laboratory (CSL), along with NOAA satellite scientists and research pilots, are leading three of the research projects. The largest, AEROMMA, has NOAA scientists and collaborators operating 30 specialized instruments aboard NASA’s DC-8 flying laboratory, collecting a myriad of chemical measurements over highly populated cities, including New York City, Chicago, Toronto and Los Angeles.
“In order to make progress on reducing air pollution that negatively affects millions of Americans, we need to have a better understanding of the current sources of pollutants and what happens to these pollutants once they are in the atmosphere,” said CSL scientist Carsten Warneke, one of the AEROMMA project’s mission scientists.
For decades, fossil fuel emissions were the primary source of urban volatile organic compounds or VOCs, which along with nitrogen oxides, or NOx, act as precursors to both ground-level ozone and particulate pollution.
As VOCs from the transportation sector have declined, recent NOAA research shows that consumer products derived from fossil fuels (so-called “volatile chemical products”) may now contribute as much as 50% of total petrochemical VOC emissions in densely populated urban cities.
These may not be properly accounted for in emission inventories or considered in air quality management strategies.
The campaigns may also have an opportunity to investigate another emerging air pollution source: wildfire smoke that has blanketed the Midwest and East Coast states this summer.
Collecting data from the sidewalks to satellites
NASA researchers are also deploying two of their Gulfstream research aircraft with the DC-8, mapping air quality and methane from high altitudes over the five cities while the DC-8 collects measurements at lower altitudes.
Similar to the other projects, data collected by NASA’s STAQS mission will be compared to TEMPO’s high-resolution estimates of trace gas and aerosols, as well as with emission inventories and atmospheric processes.
“NASA is excited to partner with NOAA and EPA during these field campaigns to learn how best to use the TEMPO satellite to observe hourly changes in air quality at the neighborhood scale over North America," said Barry Lefer, NASA's program scientist for tropospheric composition.
A concurrent NOAA research mission, CUPiDS, will use NOAA’s Twin Otter research plane to zero in on the meteorology and dynamics of the atmosphere that creates and transports pollutants from the New York metro area downwind over Southern New England.
Another element pairs a University of Maryland instrumented Cessnaoffsite link aircraft and a NOAA instrumented SUV making simultaneous measurements in the air and at the surface to better understand the vertical distribution of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in the Northeast corridor from DC-Baltimore up to New York City and Long Island Sound.
On the ground, researchers from Yale University, Aerodyne Research Inc. and other NOAA-funded collaborators will be taking measurements from a rooftop site at the The City College of New York campus, downwind in Guilford, Connecticut, from a 62-meter research tower on Long Island, in coordination with the DC-8 and Twin Otter flights. NOAA’s Climate Program Office is providing major funding for these and other affiliated studies.
“This regional network of ground sites has enormous potential to help us understand urban and downwind air pollution — not just today but under a continually changing climate,” said Yale Professor Drew Gentner, who is coordinating ground sites in New York and Connecticut.
In Manhattan, scientists will be carrying air pollution sensors in backpacks in a NOAA pilot project to investigate surface ozone and PM2.5 in underserved neighborhoods in New York City, where pollution directly impacts human health, especially during heat wave events.
Tying it all together
“The large number of participants, measurements, the variety of platforms involved, and the way they are working together in a highly choreographed and coordinated way is unique,” said CSL Director David Fahey. “Our goal is a comprehensive view of air pollution spanning the U.S. to improve forecasts of urban and regional air quality and advance the health of our nation.”
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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
Following a closed session discussion on Aug. 15, the Board of Supervisors emerged to announce that it had appointed Noemi C. Doohan, MD, Ph.D., MPH as Public Health officer, and then voted unanimously in open session to approve a one-year renewable employment agreement contract with her.
The appointment is effective Sept. 1.
Doohan served as Mendocino County’s Public Health officer on a part-time basis from July 2019 to May 2023.
That job overlapped with her position as the chief medical officer for the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department, where she was hired in October.
She also previously was a public health medical officer for the California Department of Public Health.
Medical Board of California records show that she graduated from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 2003.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Mills College, a Master of Public Health from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Doohan will provide “Public Health officer services” for a one-year period, with an option to renew.
She will be paid the annually renewable not-to-exceed amount of $290,000, as well as a $20,000 hiring incentive, according to county documents. In addition, Doohan will receive employee benefits through the county.
Deputy County Administrative Officer Matthew Rothstein told Lake County News that the contract amount was negotiated and is annually renewable on completion of a performance evaluation. He said it’s not associated with a particular step for the Public Health officer position.
The county’s job description for the Public Health officer says that the position’s annual salary is $265,000.
Doohan will report directly to the Board of Supervisors, the appointing authority, as the job description says.
Rothstein confirmed that previous Public Health officers also have reported directly to the board, not the Health Services director, noting, “The PHO does work closely and collaboratively with the Health Services/Public Health team.”
California counties are bound by state law to have health officers in place to enforce local health orders and ordinances, and state regulations and statutes relating to public health.
Doohan will be the first Public Health officer not serving on a temporary basis since Dr. Erik McLaughlin resigned in June of 2022, as Lake County News has reported.
McLaughlin’s three-and-a-half-month tenure was the shortest of any permanently appointed Public Health officer in Lake County in 20 years. At the time of his hire, he wasn’t licensed to practice medicine in the state of California.
After McLaughlin’s departure, the county hired Dr. Gary Pace, who had held the Lake County Public Health officer position during the pandemic, to take on the role again for a short period of time.
On Sept. 13, the supervisors appointed Dr. Karl A. Sporer as interim Public Health officer for a six-month term, in an amount not to exceed $6,000 a month. Sporer lives in Sonoma County and works in Alameda County.
The board amended that contract to extend it an additional six months at its Feb. 7 meeting.
Seeking options
This isn’t the first time the county of Lake has contracted with Doohan for health-related services.
At its Nov. 8 meeting, the board unanimously approved a contract with Doohan for a Lake County Public Health officer mentor program in response to having had few, if any, candidates for the position, out of 110 potential candidates identified across the state by a county-hired recruiter.
Some of that reluctance was attributed to the political nature of the job, which also had come under more fire during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At that time, County Administrative Officer Susan Parker said Doohan wasn’t interested in the Public Health officer job.
That mentor program contract called for Doohan to be paid a consulting rate of $250 per hour for three to six months, with a not-to-exceed amount of $25,000.
In her report to the board for the Aug. 15 meeting, Parker said that the county has not been able to find a permanent full-time Public Health officer since Pace left the position in April of 2021, “despite an aggressive nationwide search,” and outreach to professional associations, the California Department of Public Health and California Conference of Local Health Officers.
“None of these efforts attracted an enduring and permanent Public Health Officer. Describing this position as, ‘Difficult to Fill,’ is an understatement; the reasons are numerous,” Parker wrote in her memo to the board.
“Strains of the COVID-19 pandemic caused unprecedented turnover in the Public Health professions. What had been crucial and largely behind-the-scenes roles were suddenly thrust into the spotlight. With the overwhelming workload that came in initial pandemic response, long hours in the face of ever-changing information, many long-time practitioners understandably burned out; late career professionals also retired in significant numbers,” Parker wrote.
Following the departure of Dr. Karen Tait, who served from April 2008 to December 2017, no Lake County Public Health officer has served for longer than 20 months. The longest tenure has been that of Pace, who filled the role from Aug. 2019 to April 2021, Parker said.
Parker said there have been more than 10 changes in staffing of the Public Health officer role over a period of five and a half years.
Sporer advised the county that he couldn’t continue in the job past Sept. 30 and hoped to end the job sooner than that if possible, according to Parker’s report.
Referring to the contract with Doohan, Parker said, “Providing stability in the Public Health Officer role for a period of one year, with the option to renew, will provide critical support to the Health Services Department and broader community.”
There had been concerns over McLaughlin — who lived in Nevada — not being in Lake County for some key inspections and work that requires an on-site presence.
Doohan, who lives in Solvang, will be required to be in-person full-time for four of her first six weeks on the job. For the following month, she must be in-person for two weeks and can be remote for two weeks.
That will be followed by one week full-time in person and three weeks remote per month for the remainder of the contract.
Doohan will be responsible for developing a two-year Public Health officer workplan for the board’s approval and can perform other “current contractual obligations” if they don’t conflict with Lake County employment policies.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
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- Written by: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
HUD experts and independent research suggest that pandemic relief efforts prevented a potential surge in evictions and housing instability and temporarily reduced homelessness during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In an article published Tuesday in HUD’s online magazine, the PD&R Edge, HUD experts also outline key lessons from past research about how the federal, state and local governments can work together to prevent and end homelessness.
The executive summary of the biennial Worst Case Housing Needs report, published Tuesday, analyzes data from 2021 and estimates that 8.53 million renter households had “worst case needs” in that year, the highest number since HUD started estimating these needs in 1978.
Households with worst case needs are defined as renter households with very low incomes (incomes at or below 50% of area median income) who do not receive government housing assistance and pay more than one-half of their income for rent, live in severely inadequate conditions, or both.
Much of this increase was driven by rising rents and severe cost burdens faced by many low-income families as the rental market tightened.
Despite these trends, HUD’s Annual Homelessness Assessment Report: Part 2 for FY21, published last month, shows that fewer people entered a shelter program in 2021, and sheltered homelessness overall decreased by 17% between 2019 and 2021.
In an article in HUD’s online magazine, the PD&R Edge, HUD leaders summarize the research and suggest that federal interventions, including the Emergency Rental Assistance program, eviction moratoria, income supports like stimulus payments, the enhanced unemployment insurance, and the enhanced Child Tax Credit, the federal government helped prevent a worsening of homelessness and evictions.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden-Harris Administration and Congress were able to prevent millions of people from experiencing evictions and housing loss. We were able to prevent a spike in homelessness during the height of the pandemic,” said HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge. “While we didn’t solve the challenge of homelessness - only ensuring an adequate supply of affordable housing and access to supportive care can do that - these data provide valuable insights about how we address homelessness and ensure every person has a safe and stable place to call home.”
Building on best practices and evidenced-based research, the Biden-Harris Administration has deployed historic resources in 2023 to address the crisis of homelessness.
Earlier this year, HUD released a first-of-its-kind package of grants totaling $486 million and approximately 3,300 housing vouchers to help 62 communities address unsheltered homelessness and homeless encampments.
In addition, through the ALL INside initiative, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) and its 19 federal member agencies will partner with state and local governments to strengthen and accelerate local efforts to get unsheltered people into homes in six places: Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Phoenix Metro, Seattle, and the State of California.
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- Written by: LAKE COUNTY NEWS REPORTS
The case, United States v. Rahimi, is being heard by the Supreme Court following the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals's decision ruling this lifesaving federal “red flag” law unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
The governor’s brief argues that the lower court incorrectly interpreted the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision last year and that the federal government’s ability to enact gun regulations to protect families from dangerous individuals is supported by a longstanding historical tradition.
“It’s simple: Domestic abusers shouldn’t have guns, and America’s gun safety laws are supported by the Constitution and longstanding historical tradition. The Second Amendment is not a suicide pact. The Supreme Court must reverse the lower court’s decision,” said Newsom.
Newsom’s action to file an amicus brief followed Monday’s action by House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force Chairman Rep. Mike Thompson (CA-04) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who led 151 representatives and 18 senators in an amicus brief which repudiates the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Rahimi and calls on the Supreme Court to set a clear standard that allows for Congress to pass laws that keep the American people safe.
Thompson’s office called the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in Rahimi “one of the many disturbing decisions concerning gun violence that have been influenced by the recent Bruen decision.”
“The Fifth Circuit’s ruling in the Rahimi case has tragic and dangerous implications for people in domestic violence situations,” said Thompson. “I believe it is the responsibility of Congress to ensure that our laws protect the most vulnerable among us. The availability of firearms to be possessed by individuals with domestic violence restraining orders can escalate domestic violence and increase the risk of death or serious injury — the Supreme Court must not allow this to happen.”
The defendant in United States v. Rahimi was suspected of five shootings in Texas between 2020 and 2021. Police searched his home and found multiple firearms. He had a domestic violence restraining order which prevented him from owning a firearm under federal law.
The New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit agreed to rehear his case after the Bruen decision and applied the new “history and tradition” legal test. The court found that the federal statute was not sufficiently similar to any historical laws raised by the government. The prosecutor presented numerous historical laws that disarmed individuals dating from the colonial period. The court thought these laws were aimed at preserving political and social order, and not protecting an identified person from a specific threat posed by another.
If the Fifth Circuit decision in Rahimi is upheld, Thompson’s office said “it would open the floodgates to domestic violence abusers and other dangerous people seeking to possess firearms.”
California has its own red flag laws that allow victims of domestic violence to seek protective orders to prohibit their abuser from possessing a gun.
Across the nation, 45 states have similar laws enacted that limit the ability of those under a domestic violence restraining order from accessing firearms — saving lives and protecting victims from potential violence.
The governor’s amicus brief defends the federal government’s ability to enact commonsense gun safety laws, and builds on California’s longstanding efforts to reduce gun violence, protect victims and survivors, and save lives.
Recently, the governor introduced a proposal to end the gun violence crisis through a historic amendment to the U.S. Constitution, signed a package of gun safety laws making it easier for Californians to sue manufacturers of illegal assault weapons and those bringing them into our communities, allowing lawsuits against irresponsible gun industry members, strengthening prohibitions on ghost guns, and restricting marketing to minors.
The governor also launched an 18-month campaign to promote gun violence restraining orders.
A study from the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis found that California’s red flag law has been used to stop 58 threatened mass shootings since 2016.
California’s gun safety laws work. In 2021, California was ranked as the No. 1 state for gun safety by the Giffords Law Center, and the state saw a 43% lower gun death rate than the national average.
According to the CDC, California’s gun death rate was the 44th lowest in the nation, with 8.5 gun deaths per 100,000 people – compared to 13.7 deaths per 100,000 nationally, 28.6 in Mississippi, 20.7 in Oklahoma, and 14.2 in Texas.
A copy of the amicus brief is available here.