How Desert Dust Feeds the World's Oceans Scientists sample dust
and trace metals in seawater to learn more about climatic change
May 9, 2008 In mid-February, at the height of Austral summer,
the sun in the Antarctic never sets. Nor did the work ever stop
for University of Hawaii oceanography professor Chris Measures
and his team of trace-metals oceanographers, who worked around
the clock measuring dust from the decks of the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography research vessel (R/V) Roger Revelle.
The researchers affixed bouquets of trumpet-shaped filters to
the ship's mast to trap dust from the air. And for every degree
of longitude, they sampled the sea, plunging a contraption of
cylindrical bottles to the depths of the upper ocean, screening
the water for remnants of dissolved dust and the trace amounts
of iron and aluminum they contain. Measures is taking part in a
leg of the Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) and
Carbon research programs called the Repeat Hydrography program,
a series of cruis