Climate change has been a hot topic in recent years as we look for ways to combat it. Of course, collecting reliable data to monitor the rate of change – and to determine how to address it – is not easy.
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Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, South West London, are using precise monitoring equipment to measure pollutants and track our impact on the planet with greater precision than ever before.
The lab’s latest tool is Boreas, a laser spectrometer designed to collect and analyze methane—a greenhouse gas emitted by dozens of human activities, from agriculture to burning fossil fuels. Based on an unassuming telecommunications tower in Heathfield, Surrey, Boreas works 24 hours a day, in all weather conditions, to sample large volumes of air. The machine uses a length of tubing filled with thin plastic beads, which are then cooled to -160 degrees Celsius, allowing researchers back at NPL headquarters to cryogenically separate the methane particles from the oxygen and nitrogen, which freeze at much lower temperatures.
The goal is to determine the relative concentration of different methane molecules and better understand where the pollutants come from, explains Emmal Safi, a senior researcher at NPL.
Methane molecule made up of one carbon atom surrounded by four hydrogen atoms (its chemical formula is CH4). However, there are different types of methane in the air, called methane isotopes.
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So far, the measurements are showing the researchers what they expected: “We’re seeing methane that has a northern hemisphere signature — relatively clean air from the Atlantic — and some local agricultural sources,” says Chris Rennick, also a senior researcher on the Boreas team. “It depends on the wind direction on any given day.”
What makes Boreas unique is its capabilities: In the future, NPL hopes to build more devices like it and deploy them in different regions, including the Arctic, where potentially large amounts of methane could be trapped in permafrost.
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Boreas is one of dozens of unique pieces of pollution-measuring equipment at NPL. One of the most historically significant is the Kibble Balance, a set of high-precision scales developed in the 1970s to compare electrical and mechanical power. Fifty years later, the device is used to weigh individual air particles to determine methane concentrations.
However, the primary role of researchers like those working on Boreas is not to conduct climate research or even present evidence of climate change itself. Essentially, their profession is that of metrologists — they monitor the science of measurement to keep the science as accurate as possible.
Source of information: wired.com
