A Data-Driven Approach to the Evening Dust Peak: Decoupling Meteorological Condition and Emission Dynamics in Feedlots

This poster investigates the previously poorly understood meteorological drivers behind the Evening Dust Peak (EDP) in cattle feedlots , a phenomenon potentially linked to costly bovine respiratory disease. By analyzing a continuous monitoring dataset spanning from 2011 to 2019 , the study decouples the effects of feedlot surface moisture and atmospheric stability on dust emissions. The findings reveal that the EDP is a major emission source, contributing up to 69% of daily $PM_{10}$ mass emissions, with peak severity consistently occurring during the summer and fall seasons. Furthermore, the research demonstrates that a Hot-Dry-Windy (HDW) index explains up to 43% of the EDP's variance through its influence on feedlot surface moisture , while atmospheric stability functions as a threshold gate for dust concentrations rather than directly determining the magnitude of the peak.