Current Events

  • Atmospheric CO2 Level Tops 400 ppm
    During the week of May 13th, the CO2 level at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii topped 400 ppm rep...Read more

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    Atmospheric CO2 Level Tops 400 ppm

    During the week of May 13th, the CO2 level at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii topped 400 ppm repeatedly. Daily levels of CO2 can vary due to weather, and there are seasonal trends as well. The level of atmospheric greenhouse gases continues to increase, now over 120 ppm since the Industrial Revolution began. For more on the Keeling Curve, see http://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/. Find out more about greenhouse gases and warming.
  • Massive Tornado Outbreak on Tornado Alley
    The week of May 19 brings dozens of tornadoes to Tornado Alley in the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Io...Read more

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    Massive Tornado Outbreak on Tornado Alley

    The week of May 19 brings dozens of tornadoes to Tornado Alley in the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. On May 20th, a massive tornado struck Moore, Oklahoma, devastating communities - destroying over 100 homes and hitting two elementary schools and a hospital - with many casualties and deaths. Our thoughts are with our friends and colleagues suffering from these storms. For more on the May 20th storms, see the NOAA Storm Prediction Center Storm Report.
  • Kansas Legislator Proposes Bill to Outlaw Sustainability Education
    A bill has been introduced in the Kansas legislature this week that would prohibit the promotion of ...Read more

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    Kansas Legislator Proposes Bill to Outlaw Sustainability Education

    A bill has been introduced in the Kansas legislature this week that would prohibit the promotion of sustainability. Here is a link to the one-page bill: http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2366_00_0000.pdf. See report on Bloomberg News.

    Image courtesy of Steven Domonkos, University of Washington

From: Dr. Robert Wood
Seattle, Washington, September 24, 2008

Making a device to sample aerosol particles

Before we leave to carry out field work, there's much that needs to be done in preparation. There are many challenges involved with setting up a measurement site in a remote environment. Questions we have to ask are: Will we have enough electricity to power our instruments? Is there a place to sleep nearby?

Paposo is a small fishing village on the Chilean coast. In this region the Atacama Desert, one of the driest deserts in the world meets the Pacific Ocean. So little rain falls that people harvest the clouds for water!

What we are trying to do in the VOCALS project at Paposo is to learn more about what causes these clouds (which are mainly stratocumulus clouds) to form, and why they do not rain. The droplets of water in a cloud form on aerosol particles which are tiny particles 100 times thinner than a human hair. We need to measure aerosol particles to understand how they affect clouds.

The photograph above shows Duli Chand, a scientist who will work in Paposo to make aerosol measurements. He is holding a device (called an inlet) that will suck in aerosol particles from the surrounding air and allow us to measure them with specialized instruments.

Postcards from the Field: Climate Science from the Southeast Pacific

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