ARM students gather for work near a SeaTainer Five college
students from around the country have traded the lazy, hazy days
of summer for an opportunity to analyze the haze itself. During
their 10-week internship at BNL, these five students
participated in a campaign to measure the concentration,
chemical composition, size, shape, and optical properties of
tiny particles in the atmosphere called aerosols. This work,
conducted at Brookhaven, is supported by the U.S. Department of
Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program.
Aerosols arrive in the atmosphere from many different starting
points — both natural and anthropogenic. They come from the
burning of fossil fuels, from ocean mist and desert dust, from
factory emissions, and from volcanic activities. Some are formed
directly in the atmosphere from plant and human emissions.
“Aerosols are neither altogether good nor bad, but they’re very
important for environmental scientists to try and understand,”
says University of Illinois student Danielle