Teleconference day

Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 72

I didn't get to do much science today, because I was getting prepared for my teleconference with my students this morning. We really wanted something for the kids to look at as we went through their questions. I think that really helped them to understand the responses, and helped them to focus.

I had help from three researchers. They did a great job. They were Greg (Georgia Tech), Cort (UC-Davis), and Barry (NCAR). I really appreciated their help.

I did get to squeeze a little science in this afternoon. I worked with Cort, who explained that his experiment is to try to measure the amount of hydroxyl radical (OH) in the snow. Since it only stays OH for a very short time before it reacts with something else and changes, this is a very difficult job.

The way they do this is to create their own snow. They have to do this so that they can inject a chemical called sodium benzoate (NaBA) into the crystals as they freeze.

To make snow, they take purified water and add sodium benzoate to it. They take it outside, and spread it on a teflon sheet(teflon won't react or give off any chemicals) to freeze. They scrape the ice off, and crush it so that it resembles snow.

After they make snow, they can measure how much sodium benzoate is still left behind, and how much of it has changed to something else. They can use this information to get an estimate of how much hydroxyl (OH) was created in the snow by the sun. They analyze this on a machine called an HPLC (high pressure liquid chromatograph).

Tomorrow should be a very busy day. I will be working with Donna, and from what I hear, she's got lots of plans for us!

Rest up-

Nikki