How well do YOU breathe?

Today I had a presentation in my math class. With all the humility I can muster, we blew everyone else in the class out of the water! Now, I know it's not a competition, but all the same, our project was a beauty.

Our project was to look at pollution emitted by the oil refineries in North Salt Lake and see how that pollution acts, and see if that may be a possibility to the higher percentage of children with asthma in Woods Cross than in Bountiful, just across the interstate.. One group looked and said that the pollution didn't even reach as far North as North Salt Lake. But that doesn't make sense, since most of the refineries are North of North Salt Lake. Anyway, enough of my complaining.

So my portion of the project was to determine the winds for the model. I took a climate model, and found a day where the winds were similar to the model. Then using the data from MesoWest, a weather data analysis group in the Meteorology Department here at the University of Utah, we found what the winds should look like for each hour on a "normal" day in the summer. The first figure is an example of how the winds act at 9:00 in the evening.

After we finished that, we used some math algorithms that I won't bore you with to determine how the pollution acts throughout the day. Our results were quite fascinating! If you look at the winds, the winds are westward or almost nothing for 18 out of 24 hours, while it moves towards Bountiful for only 6 hours a day. What does that say? Pollution is going to concentrate right around Woods Cross, and will barely cross I-15. So after 24 hours, this is what our result looked like:


If the concentrations are that high around Woods Cross, then it looks like the refineries could be a contributer to higher percentages of asthma. So, what's the point? Do you have a breathing problem? Then maybe you just want to run this program for your area and see what could be affecting you. Then, if you really want, you could join the politicians and make a lot of noise about one's driving inhibiting on another's right to breathe! And while you're at it, could you do me a favor and mention the smokers walking where I try to breathe and skateboarders riding where I'm trying to walk?