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!
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| 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/
