Application of standardized quality control procedures to open-path fourier transform infrared data collected at a concentrated swine production facility

Open-path Fourier transform infrared (OP/FT-IR) spectrometry was used to me asure the concentrations of ammonia, methane, and other atmospheric gases a t a concentrated swine production facility. A total of 2200 OP/FT-IR spectr a were acquired along nine different monitoring paths during an 8-day perio d between January 11 and 22, 1999. Standardized quality control (QC) proced ures were applied to the archived OP/FT-IR spectra to verify that the instr ument was set up and operating properly during the field study and to ident ify outliers in the concentration data. These QC procedures included measur ing the random baseline noise, the signal strength, and the relative single -beam intensity in selected wavenumber regions; inspecting the archived spe ctra for wavenumber shifts, changes in resolution, and evidence of detector saturation; and examining time series plots of the target gas concentratio ns and the uncertainty values reported by the classical least-squares (CLS) analysis. Application of these QC procedures to the archived spectra ident ified 252 potential outliers. After a careful review of the original spectr a, 41 of the 252 suspected outliers were designated as actual outliers. Of the QC criteria used during this study, the uncertainty values reported by the CLS analysis were the most reliable indicators of actual outliers.