Protecting Public Health through Air Quality Monitoring

Urban air pollution poses a significant threat to human health and the quality of life of millions of people around the world. Comprehensive overall estimates of urban air pollution help people in their everyday lives and aid decision-making related to air quality control and the implementation of preventive actions to reduce emissions.

Understanding pollutant behavior
The ability to accurately monitor, diagnose, and forecast weather conditions is critical for air quality organizations in terms of understanding pollutant formation, transformation, dispersion, transport and removal.

Measuring air quality and understanding the impact of weather
Changes in day-to-day weather are the greatest factor in controlling changes in air quality. As well as determining how quickly pollutants are dispersed away from an area, weather also affects the thickness of the atmospheric layer that traps pollution in our breathable air. Technologies used to measure air quality include:

  • radiosondes
  • boundary layer profilers
  • ceilometers
  • wind sensors
  • surface weather sensors and stations

With detailed, accurate data on atmospheric conditions provided by these technologies, forecasting is significantly improved.

Find out more about urban air quality and how technology can help improve the health of people in cities around the world reading the attached material.
    Application Notes
    Scientific Papers
    Vaisala News Articles
    Recommended Products
    • Automatic Weather Stations 
      • ​Vaisala weather stations gather high-quality, real-time data that is used in a variety of weather observation activities ranging from forecasting to road traffic management.
    • Sounding Systems and Radiosondes 
      • ​Vaisala sounding products are used by meteorological organizations all around the world to measure weather in the Earth’s atmosphere, from the boundary layer to the upper atmosphere.
    • Dropsonde 
    • Sounding Systems 
    • Weather Instruments 
      • Vaisala’s observation instruments ascertain that you will have accurate, reliable, and realtime weather data when you most need it − now and in the future.
    • Multi-weather Sensors 
    • Visibility Sensors 
    • Wind Sensors 
    • Windprofilers 
      • ​With Vaisala Windprofiler, the LAP-3000, you will find the frequencies, transmitter power levels, antenna apertures and altitude coverage that you need in a remote sensing solution.
    • Vaisala Ceilometer CL31 
      • Unsurpassed performance and reliability in all weather conditions up to 25,000 feet (7.5 km). Advanced single-lens design provides excellent performance also at low altitudes. Approved and deployed by the US-FAA. Selected by the National Weather Service of USA.
    • Vaisala Ceilometer CL51 
      • CL51 is designed to measure high range cirrus clouds without unsurpassing the low and middle layer clouds, or vertical visibility in harsh conditions. Cloud reporting range up to 13 km (43,000 ft) and backscatter profiling over full measurement range up to 15km (49,200 ft). Advanced single-lens design provides excellent performance also at low altitudes.