Water vapor holds clues to sources of pollution


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SALT LAKE CITY — Scientific research reveals more clues about where the pollution in our winter inversions comes from. University of Utah scientists collected the water vapor in our smog last winter and found the chemical signature emitted by combustion sources, like vehicles and furnaces.

"It was just something totally new, which was somewhat unexpected," said Gabe Bowen, an associate professor of geology and geophysics at the university. Bowen is the senior author of the study published online in this week's issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Tailpipes and furnaces are major sources of carbon particle pollution in Utah's winter inversions. By tracking pollution in water vapor, the researchers hope to be able to find out even more about the specific components of our smog.

"When the pollution comes out of tailpipes, water vapor comes along with it," he said.

While they were collecting water vapor from the roof of their building for other research, Bowen and his colleagues discovered that the vapor from our tailpipes has a chemical signature, or fingerprint.

"We were for the first time seeing a clear chemical signature of it that we could use to identify it, and identify how much of it there was at different times in different places," said Bowen.


We think that will allow us to help figure out how much of those pollutants is coming from one source versus another: tailpipes versus furnaces, versus wood-burning, for example.

–Gabe Bowen, U. associate professor of geology and geophysics


That vapor mixes with other pollution and fog and gets trapped in our valleys during winter inversions. The combustion water vapor and carbon dioxide measurements climbed during peak commuting hours then subsided.

"This observation really hadn't been made before," Bowen said. "It was a new thing that we saw in the data."

He says this tool for measuring the sources of combustion in water is still very new. But they know that emissions of carbon dioxide from different sources produce different amounts of water vapor.

"We think that will allow us to help figure out how much of those pollutants is coming from one source versus another: tailpipes versus furnaces, versus wood-burning, for example."

Bowen says they hope to measure greenhouse gas emissions from wood stoves and industrial combustion sources the same way. It could be a key tool in better understanding the specific amounts of pollutants in Utah's smog.

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Jed Boal

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