ATom Postcard - Azore Islands to Kangerlussuaq

Released Thursday, May 18, 2017

ID: 12355

- Produced by:
- Michael Randazzo
- Written by:
- Ellen T. Gray
- Videography:
- Steve S. Parcel

Atmospheric scientists Bernadett Weinzierl of the University of Vienna, Paul Newman of Goddard Space Flight Center, and Róisín Commane of Harvard University sent back a video postcard from the last three legs of the Atmospheric Tomography, or ATom mission. Departing Ascension Island in the tropics, the science team traveled up the Atlantic to Terceira Island in the Azores off the coast of Portugal, and then back to the Arctic by way of Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. Finally the team crossed North America to return home to Palmdale, California.

The ATom mission aboard NASA’s DC-8 aircraft and flying laboratory is sampling world-wide in one of the most extensive surveys of the atmosphere to date, measuring over 200 gases as well as airborne particles. The science team is particularly interested in methane, tropospheric ozone and black carbon particles, which have strong effects on climate and which all have both human and natural origins.

Earth

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Producer
- Michael Randazzo (Advocates in Manpower Management, Inc.)
Science writer
- Ellen T. Gray (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Videographer
- Steve S. Parcel (Arcata)
Scientists
- Paul Newman (NASA/GSFC)
- Roisin Commane (Harvard University)
- Bernadett Weinzierl (University of Vienna)