Barrow, Alaska!

I (Prof. Kerri Pratt) arrived Tuesday night to pitch dark skies in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost point in the U.S.  Having spent two months here in “spring” 2012 for the NASA BRomine, Ozone, and Mercury EXperiment, I am excited to be back!  I am here to help Prof. Paul Shepson’s graduate students Kyle Custard and Angela Raso from Purdue University.  They are conducting experiments using their chemical ionization mass spectrometer to study unique halogen chemistry that only occurs in the atmosphere and snowpacks of the Polar Regions.  While I am here, I am also sampling atmospheric particles and snow for further analysis back at the University of Michigan.

While the sun was technically supposed to rise here for the first time in two months, it is cloudy with blowing snow.  Kyle and Angela have been here since the beginning of January and have yet to see the sun, even though it gets a little lighter for an hour or two in the middle of the afternoon.

Today I set up a microorifice uniform deposit impactor (MOUDI), borrowed from Prof. Andrew Ault’s group, to sample atmospheric particles for later chemical analysis.  Attaching the aerosol inlet into our “lab” on the tundra was quite a challenge in the blowing snow and cold!

Setting up the aerosol inlet in 30+ mph wind and blowing snow!

Prof. Kerri Pratt

Purdue graduate student Angela Raso's blog: http://snowkidding.blogspot.com/
Prof. Kerri Pratt's previous BROMEX blog: http://shepsonbromex.blogspot.com/