News & Events
City Tech Helps Federal Officials Track
How Air Flow in New York City Might Disperse Pollutants
City Tech student Alex Roytenberg monitoring an air sampler outside of Madison Square Garden.
From left, at the student training session held at City Tech: Medgar Evers Professor Dereck Skeete; Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Noel D. Blackburn, educational program administrator, and John Heiser, research engineer; and City Tech’s Professor Blake.
View Expanded Photo Gallery →
In the event of an accident or attack involving toxic chemicals or radiological contaminants, the ability to track the resulting dispersal of the pollutants through the air in the metropolitan New York area will be a top priority for local and national emergency management officials.
To address this challenge, a team of scientists -- including Dr. Reginald Blake, assistant professor of physical and biological sciences at New York City College of Technology (City Tech) -- recently participated in a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) project to collect atmospheric data in and around New York City. The purpose of the program is to improve computer model simulations of the transport and deposition of urban atmospheric contaminants and to strengthen emergency response techniques in New York City and urban setting across the country.
“By working with Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, our college becomes part of an important data collection network,” explained Dr. Blake, a resident of Mill Basin who is a climatologist, hydro-meteorologist and physical oceanographer studying air pollution. “I served as co-lead and guide for a team of 34 students from City Tech and Medgar Evers College who assisted the scientists in their efforts to understand how air flow disperses pollutants in urban centers like New York City.”
On two rain-free days between March 7 and March 14, Dr. Blake and his team of students monitored battery-powered air samplers on sidewalks and wind vanes on rooftops to collect data at half-hour intervals from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Their activities were part of the Urban Dispersion Program, a $10 million project sponsored by the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security, Defense and Energy. The program began preparations in 2004 and will end in 2007.
Six different gases -- inert perfluorocarbon tracers -- were released into the air from separate locations. These gases, according to the scientific team, have been used in meteorological tests since the late 1960’s and are entirely safe.
“The aim of this project,” says Dr. Blake, “is to understand how atmospheric dispersion occurs in a dense, highly developed, urbanized area like New York City. This understanding will enhance the city’s emergency capabilities for responding to potential airborne releases of harmful contaminants such as may occur from the detonation of a dirty bomb.”
Additional information is available on the Urban Dispersion Program website.
Dr. Blake’s activities in the field of meteorology are wide-ranging.
He pursued his master’s degree on a full-term NASA scholarship and completed
his PhD dissertation at the NASA
Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University. For three years,
as a city research scientist at New York City’s Department of Environmental
Protection, he studied the gaseous emissions from New York City’s 14
water pollution control plants, and he is currently working on a paper concerning
mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Last summer he was selected by the Office of Educational Programs at Brookhaven Laboratory to conduct research at the facility. He took two City Tech students with him to be part of a research team studying possible mercury contamination from a mid-sized, coal-fired power plant in Illinois. Dr. Blake, his students and a scientist from Brookhaven went to central Illinois to take mercury deposition samples (vegetation and soil). Air dispersion modeling for the visited site was then done upon their return to Brookhaven.
“I’m very excited to have our team involved in this historic New York City atmospheric dispersion study,” said Dr. Blake. “By participating, City Tech and Medgar Evers students are part of cutting-edge research, research that will not only contribute significantly to their knowledge of the physical sciences, but will, at the same time, benefit our city and, indeed, our nation.”
City Tech accounting major Alex Roytenberg volunteered for the project because “this research has the potential to benefit people in terms of saving lives.” The Coney Island resident has always loved science, taking extra science courses in high school. “Now, I am happy to have had this opportunity to work on such an important project,” he said.
Elisabeth Baker, a Medgar Evers environmental science major, said that by participating in the project, “I’ve learnt about meteorology, wind patterns and procedures for conducting research, and I’ve made contacts with staff at Brookhaven National Labs and with students from other CUNY colleges.”
The Clinton Hill resident added, “Those of us interested in environmental science need to be trained to deal with ordinary pollution and with the dispersal of toxic chemicals. This project gives me a greater understanding of both.”
3.21.05
Photos by Al Vargas