CO2 Monitoring in High-Definition

The Berkeley Atmospheric CO2 Observation Network (BEACO2N) was founded in 2012 as a web of 25 air quality monitoring “nodes” stationed atop schools and museums around the Oakland metropolitan area. While most other CO2... [ view full abstract ]

The Berkeley Atmospheric CO2 Observation Network (BEACO2N) was founded in 2012 as a web of 25 air quality monitoring “nodes” stationed atop schools and museums around the Oakland metropolitan area. While most other CO2 monitoring efforts report a single, average value for entire cities or regions, BEACO2N paints a higher-resolution CO2 picture by employing more nodes, spaced only one mile apart. To achieve its unique spatial coverage, BEACO2N uses a suite of low-cost, commercially available materials and relies on a network of volunteers (mostly educators and regulators) to provide roof, power, and internet access for the nodes. In this way, BEACO2N seeks to bridge the gap between citizen science and traditional science by gathering quality-controlled, usable observations in an inclusive neighborhood-level space and making them available to the public in near real time (http://beacon.berkeley.edu).

The BEACO2N philosophy insists that the same data that informs and inspires communities can also feature in meaningful academic work. Indeed, the first two years of results have provided convincing evidence that this low-cost, volunteer-corps network nonetheless captures significant local CO2 events with sufficient sensitivity to inform pollution models and regulations. This validation of the BEACO2N approach offers insight into questions common to all citizen science projects, such as: How good is ‘good enough’ when it comes to data? What swift, efficient quality-control strategies still allow for surprising results? And where is the trade-off between the shelf price of materials and the cost of their repair and/or maintenance? Initial thoughts and lessons from BEACO2N’s recently forged collaboration with community climate change almanac iSeeChange will also be presented, as well as potential future applications of the BEACO2N data set.