Science Forum (July 24th)

Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 72

Today was a very busy day for all of the researchers involved in this project. This was they day when they all got together and shared the data they had collected, what their conclusions are up to this point, and what they plan on doing next.

It was interesting to listen to all of the reports, because so many different groups were measuring similar and related things. The researchers used planes, ships, and satellite data to constantly compare their data and look for validation of their own and other's results.

In listening to each of the researchers report, it soon became very apparent to me that this was truly an example of the scientific method in action. Each of the researchers formulated questions and stated what they expected to find (problem and hypothesis). Then the collected the data ( experiment), observed and analyzed that data, and finally concluded and requestioned-- what do we do next (next problem).

There were a couple of things that I noticed were common threads throughout the different presentations:

1) Weather had a HUGE impact on the results. It has generally been a cooler than average summer in the Portsmouth area, so that has kept the amounts of aerosols, NOx, and other chemicals researchers expected to find at lower levels. Wind direction can change what they see, also. They tend to find "cleaner" air when the wind is coming from the north than from any other direction. When the wind is coming from the south, they get much dirtier air, because it is coming from the New York City area. Even clouds have an impact- many of the groups mentioned that when they collected data in Wisconsin (Yep- they've been here, too), much of it was inaccurate because of the cloud cover.

2) Natural events can affect data. Almost all of the researchers reported skewed data as a result of a plume of air that came from a fire in Alaska in 2002. This was interesting to me, because I have encountered a lot of people who say that climate change could be a result of natural events (like tree emissions, volcanic eruptions, etc...) It seems to me that the scientific community is very careful to take those "biomass" factors into account when they come to conclusions about the atmosphere and climate!!

All in all, I found this meeting to be very interesting. I (again) learned a lot, and have a much better understanding of the importance of this project.