Weather and Air Across Altitude
How weather and air change with height
Nepal's public, continuously reporting air-quality network has fewer than 20 stations, all below 1,500 m; above that height there are only a few research sites. Smoke and dust from the Indo-Gangetic Plain cross these mountains every winter; how much of it reaches the high valleys, and how it changes on the way up, is the question. Snow matters as much: the rivers depend on when it falls and when it melts.
What weather and air-quality models give for the planned sites today, low to high. Models smooth over mountains, so read these as estimates; the IESH hubs will measure the same places directly.
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Source: Open-Meteo weather forecast models · CC BY 4.0.
Source: Open-Meteo air quality, from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) · CC BY 4.0; contains modified Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service information.
Borders: Natural Earth, public domain.
The same instrument at every height
IESH stations at schools along a line from Nepalgunj on the plains up to Dolpo, and a set in and around the Kathmandu valley. Because every station is the same instrument with the same calibration, the line measures how temperature, humidity, pressure and particulates change with altitude, and the high stations record snow. The students at each school run their station, and what a community already knows about its weather (when the snow comes, which winds bring smoke) is part of what the readings test.
The air pressure each station records also sets how many cosmic-ray muons reach the ground there, so the same stations serve the muon measurements. → Cosmic rays and the sky
Planned. The instrument for these sites is being built: the first prototype is tested on the bench, and a sturdier rebuild is under way.
