Monitoring a Natural Chemical Reactor
Climate
Check---Graduate student Tove Svendby checks a solar
tracker used to measure atmospheric gas from the Geophysical
Institute roof. A similar instrument will be housed in a new Climate
Change Monitoring Station this spring. Photo by Evelyn
Trabant.
Instruments sensitive enough to detect traces of gold and other heavy metals in the air will be installed in a new Climate Change Monitoring Station at Poker Flat Research Range this spring.
The 50-foot trailer outfitted to serve as a housing unit for the station was hauled out to the range this winter. At least 10 instruments will be set up inside the remote lab in March, soon after the sun returns to create a host of chemical reactions in the troposphere, which extends from ground level to about six miles high.
Institute Professor of Physics Glenn Shaw likens this area of the atmosphere to a natural chemical reactor. "The arctic atmosphere is a like a big retort or container that fills up in winter with gases that change in spring to chemical smog," Shaw said.
Trace chemicals and compounds in the air that have built up as a result of man's polluting activities will be measured in addition to greenhouse gases, such as carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide and methane, thought to be culprits of global climate change.
The effects of worldwide warming are expected to appear in the Arctic first, and many of the changes will be evident in the polar atmosphere, which Shaw describes as a natural laboratory.
"Chemicals in arctic air are easy to monitor because the polar atmosphere is relatively simple: it contains a stable air mass underlain most of the year by an ice surface, with no large trees around to inject chemicals in it, no dust storms, and no polluting industry nearby," Shaw said.
Against the relatively clean polar backdrop, chemicals in the air tend to stand out, particularly those that are foreign. The study will begin just before the appearance of arctic haze, a polluted mass of air that comes to Alaska after being produced in industrial areas of Eurasia.
Shaw established the station with Associate Professor of Chemistry Dan Jaffe, and Assistant Professor of Chemistry Richard Benner. Jaffe hopes to determine how pollution affects ozone in the troposphere, and Benner will measure sulfates.
Their goal is to understand the arctic system, the chemical reactions that occur within it, and the climatic consequences that result from those reactions. The instruments at the station can monitor the air in real time, and many of the measurements will be instantly cabled from the range to the institute for analysis.