NOAA Teacher at Sea
Kirk Beckendorf
Onboard NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown
July 4 – 23, 2004
Mission: New England Air Quality Study (NEAQS)
Geographical Area: Northwest Atlantic Ocean
Date: July 11, 2004
Weather Data from the Bridge
Time 8:00 PM ET
Latitude- 42 37.71 N
Longitude- 70 22.9 W
Air Temperature 17 C
Air Pressure 1018 Millibars
Wind Direction at surface Southeast
Cloud cover Partly cloudy
Daily Log
What famous event happen at Boston harbor?
It was a very eventful day today. The computer program that manages the wind profiler showed that there was a problem because one entire section was being shown in red instead of green. Dan Law asked if I would help him find out what was wrong. I jumped at the opportunity knowing that he really needed my expertise. I was very good at holding the wrench for him. As I was taking pictures of him and the inside of the profiler we were sailing into Boston Harbor. As we came into town our decks looked like those of a cruise ship. Most of the scientists were out on deck taking pictures and enjoying the view. Now everyone is back inside of their lab facilities which are mostly big shipping crates.
We spent most of the day in Boston Harbor near the end of Boston Logan Airport sampling the air in Boston. It was a beautiful weekend day and there were hundreds of sail and motorboats all around us. I didn’t see any tea floating in the water though. While soaking up the sun and enjoying the view of the harbor I helped Drew Hamilton, from NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Lab in Seattle, Washington take some measurements with an instrument call a sunphotometer which measures the total amount of particles in the column of air above the instrument.
In the afternoon we left Boston and specifically to follow a cruise ship. Its exhaust was visible in the air and we criss-crossed back and forth across the plume to see what chemicals were being released by the ship. After we left the cruise ship’s exhaust plume our ship stopped so that we could do the daily launch of the ozonesonde. A little while before sunset one of NOAA’s WP-3 airplanes circled us several times. It is also sampling and measuring the chemicals in the air as part of NEAQS. Comparisons can then be made of the plane’s measurements with those made here on the ship.
The weather report is for winds to be blowing from the southwest through tomorrow so the plan is for us to travel tonight to the northwest so that we will be in the pollution blowing from Boston.
Questions of the Day
What does NEAQS-ITCT stand for?
What will our bearing be tonight if we are going northwest?
How many kinds of planes are being used in NEAQS-ITCT?
