Practical Applications for UAS Designed to Assist Climatologists in Studying Toxic Gas Emissions Relative to Climate Change

Abstract

The rapid advancement of the Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) technology and applications provide a unique opportunity to assist the United Nations with their 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). Further enhancement of the UAS sector has brought forward tangible applications that illustrate how this technology can assist in improving community health, collective education and stimulate economic growth. There are numerous practical examples of how UAS contribute to the SDG’s of climatologists today. Outlined in this paper are some of the most prominent UAS applications and their resulting benefits to society. The development and global roll out of the UAS has created significant opportunity for climate scientists studying toxic gas emissions and the chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere. UAS make emission monitoring more accurate, contribute to gas leak detection at industrial facilities and greatly assist plant efficiency and optimization. UAS help simplify the data collection process by allowing remote pilots to quickly survey industrial plants and allow them to carry payloads of scientific equipment such as spectrometers which can be used for Differential Optical Absorbance Spectroscopy (DOAS) or thermal cameras designed to detect thermal anomalies. The research illustrated here shows real-world practical examples of using UAS technology on natural emissions at the active crater of the Poás Volcano in Costa Rica and the Industrial power plant of Tampa Electric (TECO) in Tampa, Florida.