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The NYAAQ Study is a combination of specific projects around the New York City and Newark Metro Area with funding from Federal and State Agencies.

Current Research

Greenhouse Gas

Methane
Nitrous Oxide
Carbon Dioxide

Air Pollution

Air Quality

Collaboration and Field Campaigns

For NOAA award "Quantifying the impact of biogenic and anthropogenic fluxes on the atmospheric composition of the New York City Metro Area" we are working with John Mak at Stony Brook University and Andrew Reinmann, City University of New York. Our New York centric project will be further developing our CO2 measurement network and measuring isoprene and ozone precursors and will be completing a series of summer intensives over the next few summers. 

We are working with Lee Murray, University of Rochester (PI) and Eric M. Leibensperger, SUNY Plattsburgh, to make continuous measurements of methane and carbon dioxide at air-quality monitoring sites in New York State on a project funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency (NYSERDA). This project aims to constrain regional upwind emissions of methane arriving into New York from neighboring states and examine the downwind impacts of those emissions on air quality and climate.

We also worked with John Mak at Stony Brook University as part of the LISTOS project flights in summer 2019 to measure CO2 and CH4 profiles. LISTOS is the Long-island Sound Tropospheric Ozone Study funded by NYSERDA and NESCAUM (Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management). 

We are involved in the FROG-NY and FROGSICLE campaign to measure fluxes of reactive gases and aerosols over Long Island, measuring outflow from New York City. This involved a field campaign in the summer of 2023 and an upcoming field campaign at the same site in the winter of 2024.

We are conducting mobile measurements of street-level greenhouse gases, including methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide.

Recent Publications

More Publications

Our work focuses on measuring carbon dioxide and methane and understanding their sources in urban environments and how greenhouse gas emissions are tied to urban air quality. The change in atmospheric concentrations during the COVID lockdown in 2020 was quite large and we are working to quantify how much is a reduction in emissions vs good weather conditions and what was driving the change. Some recent publications include:

  • Commane, R. and Schiferl, L, Climate mitigation policies for cities must consider air quality impacts. Chem, 8, 1-14, 2022.
  • Tzortziou, M., Kwong, C. F., Goldberg, D., Schiferl, L., Commane, R., Abuhassan, N., Szykman, J., and Valin, L.: Declines and peaks in NO2 pollution during the multiple waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in the New York metropolitan area, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 2399–2417, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-2399-2022, 2022.

Project News

Role of isoprene in air pollution

The American Chemical Society (ACS) Reactions channel also did a fantastic overview of isoprene on their YouTube channel link that Roisin and Andy contributed to as Scientific Consultants. It's well worth a watch to understand why we care about isoprene, especially in cities! 

Graphic showing how VOC emissions from trees in polluted cities can increase ozone, which impacts air quality.

Urban Isoprene in the News

Dandan Wei's ES&T paper: High-Resolution Modeling of Summertime Biogenic Isoprene Emissions in New York City received a lot of interest from NYC news! Kevin Krajick at LDEO wrote a press release that interested many media outlets, some of which wasn't quite what we intended. But thankfully, Austyn Gaffney interviewed Dandan, Andrew Reinmann and Roisin for a really well written article in the New York Times: New York City's Trees Work Hard. Still, they could use a little help that explained the link between biogenic volatile organic…

Indoor Air Quality Impacts of Gas Stoves in NYC Public Housing

A new peer-reviewed article evaluates a first-of-its-kind pilot project to study the effects of residential cooking electrification (gas-to-induction) in a public housing setting in the U.S. Results suggest  the effectiveness of electric stoves as a means to reduce nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure in the home with households that replaced their gas stove for an induction stove registering a 56% drop in NO2 concentrations compared to households that still had gas stoves. Participants also unanimously reported satisfaction with their induction stoves and cited significant quality of life…

Roisin Commane - Clearing the Air: Understanding New York City's Air Quality and Climate 

Roisin's Public Talk at LDEO for Earth Month

Roisin gave the April Public Lecture at Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory:

Clearing the Air: Understanding New York City's Air Quality and Climate 

 

Thanks to all who joined in person. The lecture was recorded and is available on Lamont's YouTube channel alongside all the previous Lectures:

 

New long-term field site

Long-term measurements of CO2, methane and CO in New Jersey have begun at the Rutgers New Brunswick site

Urban CO2 study in the News!

Dandan Wei's ERL paper received a lot of interest from NYC news soon after being published! Kevin Krajick at wrote a great press release that interested many media outlets including the New York Times and NY1 Spectrum TV. 

Media