Utah Atmospheric Trace-gas and Air Quality (UATAQ)#

DOI

uataq reads UATAQ data: greenhouse-gas and air-quality measurements in northern Utah, from fixed sites in the Salt Lake Valley, the mountains and valleys around it and the Uintah Basin, and from instruments on TRAX light-rail trains and on buses. Two research groups at the University of Utah keep the archives on CHPC: John Lin’s group (every fixed site, and some of the trains’ instruments) and John Horel’s group (the buses, and the trains’ other instruments). uataq reads both, so you do not need to know where or how either stores its files.

It is written for members of the groups who work on CHPC, where the archives are. A month of CO2 and CH4 from one site is one call:

>>> import uataq
>>> obs = uataq.get_obs("WBB", ["CO2", "CH4"], time_range="2025-06")
>>> obs.head(3)
                     CO2d_ppm_cal  CO2d_ppm_raw  CH4d_ppm_cal  CH4d_ppm_raw instrument
Time_UTC
2025-06-01 00:00:03    432.407511      435.5981      2.010693      2.010473   lgr_ugga
2025-06-01 00:00:13    432.561390      435.7535      2.010209      2.009984   lgr_ugga
2025-06-01 00:00:23    433.129237      436.3271      2.010649      2.010428   lgr_ugga

Every time in uataq is UTC. Start with Installation, then Your first data.

  • Getting started: install uataq and read your first data

  • Guides: find the sites and data you need, read them, and understand the data levels, the mobile sites and the errors

  • Reference: the sites, columns, arguments and configuration, and every function and class

  • Contributing: how uataq is laid out, and how to change it

Citing the data#

When you publish with UATAQ data, cite the papers that describe the measurements:

  • The fixed sites’ CO2 and CH4: Bares et al. (2019), “The Utah urban carbon dioxide (UUCON) and Uintah Basin greenhouse gas networks: instrumentation, data, and measurement uncertainty”, Earth System Science Data 11, 1291–1308, doi:10.5194/essd-11-1291-2019.

  • The TRAX trains: Mitchell et al. (2018), “Monitoring of greenhouse gases and pollutants across an urban area using a light-rail public transit platform”, Atmospheric Environment 187, 9–23, doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2018.05.044.

  • The electric buses (the Electric Bus Air Quality Observation Project, which began in July 2021): Mendoza et al. (2024), “Electric buses as an air pollution and meteorological observation network: Methodology and preliminary results”, Science of the Total Environment 951, 175327, doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175327.

To cite uataq itself, use its DOI, in the badge at the top of this page.