sensors to measure heat and humidity. Falgoust was most impressed to see how the data these instruments collected illustrated the atmospheric conditions he was experiencing. “When the bay breeze came through,” he says, “I could see the spikes in the data.” Several of the ground-based instruments needed to be in a climatecontrolled environment. To keep these instruments cool, “We built a shed out of particle board and two-by-fours and put in an air conditioner,” says Gina Mazzuca, a junior meteorology major. She operated and calibrated the instruments in the shed, which included trace gas analyzers for ozone, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide, and a nephelometer that indirectly measured particulate matter. The crew actually used several instruments to measure particulate matter. One such instrument, the micropulse lidar, ran continuously day and night. Erica Dolinar, a senior meteorology major, operated this instrument, which she says “emits a laser beam straight up into the sky.” The beam generated backscatter when it hit particulate matter. From the amount of backscatter, Clark explains, they could determine concentrations of particulate matter. In addition to micropulse lidar, Millersville’s crew also used two DustTrak
aerosol monitors, one on the ground and one hanging from the balloon. Aerosol is just another name for particles in the atmosphere, Clark says. These aerosol monitors measure the size of particles in an air sample. Size definitely matters, because particles measuring 2.5 microns and smaller, known as PM 2.5, can pass by mucous membranes and through human nose hairs. “PM 2.5 are particularly deleterious because they make it into your lungs,” Clark says. Once in the lungs, “these particles can cause problems for people like me who have asthma,” says Lindsay Blank, a junior majoring in meteorology and computer science. In addition to operating these monitors, Blank also wrote a computer program that could synchronize data collected from all of the crew’s instruments, making sure that times for each measurement correlated. For her, writing this computer program was the most challenging aspect of the project. She wrote it from scratch in Fortran, a computer language she had only just learned the previous fall. “This was my first real computer application project,” she says.
Experience influences students’ plans Ultimately, this experience illustrated for Blank that “there are some things you can’t be taught in the classroom; you just have to go out and experience them for yourself.” Like Blank, Prebish enjoyed “being able to apply [classroom] knowledge to real-world experience.” “Now, I know what being a researcher would be like,” he says. Pauly agrees, “Having it right in front of you is worth a million textbooks...so much better than just reading about it.” The DISCOVER-AQ experience made her realize how much she
loves working with instruments. Before this project, she was set on joining the Air Force but now plans to attend graduate school and hopes someday to work for a company developing or testing meteorological instruments. She is not the only student whose plans have been changed by the project. Mazzuca now wants to pursue graduate studies in meteorological instrumentation. Likewise, Dolinar, who operated the micropulse lidar, hopes to work with lidar technology in graduate school. During their month in the field, the students encountered several thunderstorms. Mike Charnick, a senior meteorology major, is interested in studying them and is “looking at graduate school more now than I had.” Prebish now also plans to pursue graduate studies in meteorology. Millersville does not have a graduate program in meteorology. Consequently, Charnick says, “the professors bring undergraduates into their research projects.” He says this gives Millersville’s meteorology students an advantage over students at other schools. Falgoust agrees, saying “[this undergraduate research experience] is definitely a stepping stone to get into a graduate school research position.”
Future of DISCOVER-AQ Over the next three years, NASA plans to conduct DISCOVER-AQ research in Houston, Sacramento and another site to be determined. Like the I-95 corridor, all these sites experience high levels of air pollution. Pickering says that once completed, the data from DISCOVER-AQ will be used to improve not only the interpretation of satellite data, but also the accuracy of computer models that forecast air quality. “These forecasting models are used in the regulatory end of emissions,” he says. It helps lawmakers to decide how much air pollution emissions need to be reduced to improve air quality and meet Environmental Protection Agency standards. According to Pickering, NASA has not yet decided which ground crews will work in Houston. Clark has already applied and hopes his Millersville crew will be one of them.
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