Air Quality – Working With Data

How NOT to format time series data

I work with lots of environmental time series data from stationary instruments. This post describes why you should avoid mixing data and metadata in a single file and instead suggests an easy-to-implement, easy-to-use, maximally compact format consisting of two .csv files linked by unique identifiers.

Comparing Air Quality Sites

Air quality continues to be in the news with New York Times articles like these:

Health Risks of Smoke and Ozone Rise in the West as Wildfire Worsen
Even Low Levels of Soot Can Be Deadly to Older People, Research Finds

A quick review of web based air quality resources shows a range of sites featuring maps, time series plots and relevant information.