Browsing by Autor "Juan Felipe Méndez-Espinosa"

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    Estudio de una intrusión de polvo sahariano en la atmósfera de Colombia
    (University of Medellín, 2018) Juan Felipe Méndez-Espinosa; L. Herrera; Luis Carlos Belalcázar
    El desierto del Sahara es una de las principales fuentes de material particulado (MP) en el mundo. Este MP tiene la capacidad de afectar la calidad del aire a miles de kilómetros de la fuente. Las intrusiones de este polvo en el Caribe están bien documentadas, sin embargo, no se han reportado intrusiones de este contaminante en grandes ciudades colombianas. En este artículo se analiza y determina la posible relación entre las emisiones de polvo del Sahara y un episodio de alta contaminación que se registró en Bogotá y Medellín a finales de junio de 2014. Se utilizaron los datos registrados por las redes de calidad del aire de Bogotá y Medellín, la densidad másica de columna de polvo del proyecto MERRA-2 y los resultados del modelo NMMB/BSC-Dust. Se rastrearon las trayectorias y origen de masas de aire implementando HYSPLIT y se obtuvo el tipo de aerosol mediante el sensor CALIOP-CALIPSO.
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    STUDY OF A SAHARAN DUST INTRUSION INTO THE COLOMBIAN ATMOSPHERE : Impact on public health The case of Guajira
    (2019) L. Herrera; Samuel David Osorio García; Juan Felipe Méndez-Espinosa
    Sahara desert is one of the main sources of particulate matter (PM) in the world. This Particulate Matter has the potential to affect the air quality, thousands of kilometers away from the source. The dust intrusions in the Caribbean are well documented; however, there are no reports of this pollutant in Colombian large cities. In this article we analyze and establish the possible relation between the Sahara’s dust emissions and an episode of elevated PM levels registered at the end of June 2014 in the entire Country, these type of events are not atypical for coastal areas, that is why is pertinent to assess the impact on public health in this case for Guajira . For this purposes we used data collected by the automatic air quality monitoring stations installed in these cities, the column mass density of the MERRA-2 project, and results from the NMMB/BSC-Dust model. We also implemented the HYSPLIT model to determine the origins and trajectories of air masses during the episode. As results, the averages in the Medellin results were the highest values of 2014. According to the results obtained from MERRA-2, on June 27, 2014 an intrusion of Saharan dust occurred in approximately 95% of the national territory with a value greater than 90 Kg / Km2 of dust column density, and from the backward trayectories, the air masses were from saharan dust. The increase of reports of  cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses for Maicao on Guajira Department are related to the increment of particulate matter due this transatlantic transport.