Predicting frequency distributions for ozone, NO2 and TSP from restricted data sets

Abstract The results of Ott and Mage (1981) for CO indicate that random sampling yields accurate estimates of the mean and standard deviation. This paper examines the estimates for a cumulative frequency distribution using four different types of data set: (1) continuous monitoring throughout the year, (2) continuous monitoring one week out of every four, (3) random sampling at any time and (4) random sampling only on weekdays between 9.00 a.m. and 5.00 p.m. Data sets for O 3 , NO 2 and TSP are used. The results show that random sampling should only be used when there is no restriction on the time of sampling and that option (2) yields very good results indicating a cost-effective way of recording results.