Water plays an important role in climate change

With sea turtles and surf shops, Hawaii's Big Island is like a tropical water world. However for climate scientists, it is the ideal place to study low humidity air and dehydration processes in the atmosphere.

From the top of Mauna Loa - 11,000 minutes above Hawaii's coconut-rich beaches - climate scientists David Noone and Joe Galewsky can monitor steam to move to the equator and the polar regions. They were the first to try to check the chemical markers of steam in real time to understand the process of controlling the global water cycle.

Galewsky, a professor at the University of New Mexico, said: 'There is no other place to make these measurements. A device here and in the middle of the Pacific can provide us with information about the entire northern hemisphere '.

Looming above the local weather layers, Mauna's atmosphere was moistened from places hundreds of kilometers away. Noone, a professor at the University of Colorado creating Boulder, also works at the Institute of Environmental Sciences, said: 'From this height you can see the boundary between the clouds below and the clear sky. squeezed above (low humidity). It inspires us, you can see what you're measuring. '

Charles Keeling, pioneer.

Mauna Loa's special height and isolation are the reason this mountain was chosen to measure carbon dioxide 50 years ago. Leading by Charles Keeling, this survey shows that global CO2 levels are rising at a very fast pace. The original device remained in a small building next to the main station of the mauna Loa Observatory. Noon echo said: 'We like to think that we are following Keeling'.


In fact, through actual research funded by the National Science Foundation, Noone and Galewsky are examining the amount of a greenhouse gas of equal importance. Like CO2, water vapor also retains heat and returns to the planet. Understanding the process of atmospheric moisture control is critical to predict the extent of future global warming.

Noone explains: 'There is no doubt that CO2 is the main cause of changes in the climate of our planet. But a lot of the changes we observe depend on the change in the water cycle, and the amount of water vapor in the air '.

Atmospheric isotopes in real time

In order to monitor the moisture transitions on Mauna Loa, the scientists studied clues created by oxygen and hydrogen isotopes. Water molecules with heavy atoms stop themselves. Scientists use this fact to determine whether cloud formation and precipitation affect air, as well as identify the path it moves.In this way, they created a map of the air movement cycle in the air.

The zigzag path up to the lava area of ​​Muàn Loa is above. (Photo: CIRES, University of Colorado at Boulder).

The idea of ​​measuring atmospheric isotopes in real time is still new, so scientists don't leave anything to chance. They used all the equipment available to test heavy concentrations of oxygen and hydrogen: two automatic laser analyzers, two satellites, a series of portable bags, and self-made dry water storage bags Assembled from surgical tubes and parts of fish tanks.

Galewsky, who is like Noone, is also a post-researcher and uses most of the time in front of a computer screen, jokingly: 'I imagine myself hitting myself hard and lying unconscious between Saddle and Mauna Loa. '.

In contrast to the new analyzers, the water bag and the sample must be operated in accordance with natural rules and bases to coincide with the passing satellite. Unfortunately for scientists, this means taking samples at 2 am, when temperatures on lava areas on Mauna Loa are almost frozen. For two hours in the middle of the night, traps must be bathed continuously in the smoke of dry ice.

Measure feedback for climate change

Returning to the continent, Noone and Galewsky will work with colleagues at NASA's Jet Laboratory to compare measurements from ground-based devices to spectrophotometers on NASA's Aura satellites. This will help them use separate observations to monitor steam on a global scale and diagnose major changes in the water cycle when the planet warms.

Real-time analyzers provide scientists with another opportunity: the ability to perform extensive measurements of atmospheric humidity at key locations such as Mauna Loa. Noone and Galewsky believe that these measurements can develop into long-term steam control, similar to the global CO2 control program inspired by Keeling's previous research.

Noone said: 'The advantage of isotopes in steam is that they can help us measure real feedback on climate change, not indirect effects.'

When the steam monitoring network becomes a reality, climate scientists will be able to do more than predict planet warming based on the amount of CO2 released. They will be able to identify the basic ways in which human activity is changing the weather and climate.