Articles | Volume 16, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1311-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1311-2023
Research article
 | 
13 Mar 2023
Research article |  | 13 Mar 2023

An evaluation of the U.S. EPA's correction equation for PurpleAir sensor data in smoke, dust, and wintertime urban pollution events

Daniel A. Jaffe, Colleen Miller​​​​​​​, Katie Thompson, Brandon Finley, Manna Nelson, James Ouimette, and Elisabeth Andrews

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Cited articles

Ardon-Dryer, K., Dryer, Y., Williams, J. N., and Moghimi, N.: Measurements of PM2.5 with PurpleAir under atmospheric conditions, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 13, 5441–5458, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-5441-2020, 2020. 
Barkjohn, K. K., Gantt, B., and Clements, A. L.: Development and application of a United States-wide correction for PM2.5 data collected with the PurpleAir sensor, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 4617–4637, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-4617-2021, 2021. 
Borlina, C. S. and Rennó, N. O.: The impact of a severe drought on dust lifting in California's Owens Lake area, Sci. Rep.​​​​​​​, 7, 1784, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01829-7, 2017. 
Cahill, T. A., Gill, T. E., Reid, J. S., Gearhart, E. A., and Gillette, D. A.: Saltating particles, playa crusts and dust aerosols at Owens (Dry) Lake, California, Earth Surf. Proc. Land., 21, 7, 621–639, https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1096-9837(199607)21:7<621::AID-ESP661>3.0.CO;2-E, 1996. 
Euphrasie-Clotilde, L., Plocoste, T., and Brute, F.-N.: Particle size analysis of African dust haze over the last 20 years: a focus on the extreme event of June 2020, Atmosphere, 12, 502, https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12040502, 2021. 
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Short summary
PurpleAir sensors (PASs) are low-cost tools to measure fine particulate matter (PM) concentrations. However, the raw PAS data have significant biases, so the sensors must be corrected. We analyzed data from numerous sites and found that the standard correction to the PAS Purple Air data is accurate in urban pollution events and smoke events but leads to a 6-fold underestimate in the PM2.5 concentrations in dust events. We propose a new correction algorithm to address this problem.