In October 2011, Jonathan Kofler, Engineer and Technical Lead at NOAA, installed new sampling equipment at the Mt. Bachelor research station which significantly improves our monitoring capabilities. The NOAA sampler collects daily air samples in glass flasks, which are automatically switched every day. The samples are sent to Boulder, CO for in depth analysis by a variety of different instruments. Central Oregon Community College students Emily Weidner and McKenzie Amodei assist with the upkeep and replacement of the flasks. The NOAA partnership will provide an important new suite of observations to help us interpret the sources of air at Mt. Bachelor.

We are happy to report some of the preliminary data here. Below is a figure showing the correlation of benzene and CO concentrations.

Jesse Ambrose will be giving a presentation at the UW Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry Seminar next week.

In his talk, "High Time Resolution Measurement of Oxidized Hg with the UW Detector for Oxidized Hg Species", Jesse will present an overview of the instrumentation and preliminary results from our Reno Atmospheric Mercury Intercomparison Experiment (RAMIX) campaign during the Summer of 2011

The seminar will be held at the Seattle UW campus on Mon Feb 27 3:30pm – 4:20pm Pacific Time in the Atmospheric Sciences-Geophysics (ATG) Building, Room 310c.

See you there!

On Tuesday, January 24, Jesse Ambrose will present an overview of air quality research within the Jaffe Research Group. Hosted by UW Bothell's Office of Research in an effort to promote and raise awareness about current and ongoing research, Research in Progress is a weekly seminar series held on campus, and is open to all interested students, faculty, staff, and members of the general public.

Please join us for refreshments and stimulating scientific discussion!

Time: Tuesday, January 24 @ 4 pm
Location: UW1-361 (UW Bothell campus)

In a recently published Nature Geoscience paper, Seth Lyman and Dan Jaffe report their findings with regards to the behavior of atmospheric mercury from their 2010 aircraft campaign over parts of North America and Europe. The data from this campaign significantly improve our understanding ofthe cycling of mercury in the atmosphere and how mercury can accumulate in ecosystems.

The full text of the paper can be found here.

Dan was invited to a national panel to summarize our understanding of Policy Relevant Background (PRB) ozone. PRB O3 refers to the concentration of ozone that blows in to the US from foreign sources and hence is not subject to domestic emission controls. Understanding PRB O3 is therefore essential for regulating ozone in the US. The report was strongly influenced by our work, including data from Mt. Bachelor.

The published paper summarizing the panel's findings can be found here.