The goal of Anasphere is to develop user-friendly, inexpensive, and commercially available instruments capable of measuring multiple atmospheric and meteorological parameters. To date, there is a shortage of instruments capable of doing this that are available to users and convenient to use. In the past, many of these parameters have been measured using instruments deployed on planes which implies that the majority of them are too large and expensive to accommodate the needs of many researchers. Anasphere hopes to overcome this obstacle!
The scientific "why" behind our many instruments actually stems from a number of different sources. Here is a look at the "why" behind Anasphere's meteorological systems, cloud water content (CWC) sensor, and carbon dioxide (CO2) sensor.
Anasphere's wide variety of meteorological systems gather temperature, pressure, humidity, precipitation, wind direction, and wind speed data from diverse platforms including surface, tethered and free-flying platforms. These instruments were primarily developed to enable and promote more accurate and real-time weather forecasting ("nowcasting").
Weather forecasting can be defined as using the combination of science and technology to predict the weather (state of the atmosphere) for a given time and location. Here in the Rocky Mountains, the atmosphere can be highly variable and unstable making weather forecasting quite a challenge. This region can actually be looked at as a series of microclimates. Microclimates are confined atmospheric zones with conditions that differ from the area around it. These microclimates can be as small as less than a square meter (e.g., under a rock) or as large as many square kilometers (e.g., crop fields). Microclimates are separated by very short distances, but spread out over a very large area. A major difficulty in weather forecasting stems from there being a very low density of weather stations trying to predict what will happen over an expansive area of microclimates.
Anasphere's surface, tethered, and free-flying meteorological systems can aid in the improvement of local meteorological profiles by providing the detailed data that is necessary for successful nowcasting. Nowcasting is short-term (0-12 hours) and precise weather forecasting for a specific geographic location that is based on current detailed data of the essential parameters. This detailed data can be easily collected using Anasphere instruments.
Anasphere recently joined the massive effort to research and understand clouds. Scientists all over the globe are trying to discern the role of clouds in the ongoing climate change. In order to do this, we need to learn more about the different cloud properties and cloud variability.
It is well understood that our climate is changing; ice sheets and glaciers are melting and water and air temperatures are rising, yet the role of clouds in these processes is not yet well understood. We do believe that as the climate continues to change, clouds will change too. We are trying to gather the information that is necessary to make more accurate descriptions of the properties of clouds so we can better understand them now and how they might change in the future. After we have this information, we can start to answer important question like:
As of now, there are no definite answers to these questions. Anasphere is one research team that is working to make the capture of cloud property data easier and more affordable to obtain in hopes of gathering as much data as possible. The faster we can gather this information, the faster we can answer the above proposed questions as well as many others.
In addition to joining the investigation into clouds, Anasphere has also joined forces with scientists around the world to get a better handle on carbon dioxide (CO2). Carbon dioxide is one of the most important greenhouse gases and many believe that it is largely responsible for the change in climate we are beginning to see. CO2 emissions and the concentration in the atmosphere have risen dramatically since the start of the industrial revolution, which historians define to have occurred in the late 1700's and early 1800's. One of the most notable events to the start of the industrial revolution was the increased use of coal which started to release excess CO2 to the atmosphere. CO2 emissions have since then increased dramatically with the invention of the internal combustion engine and electrical power generation. CO2 concentrations have increased from a pre-industrial concentration of ~285 ppm (measured using air trapped in ice cores, for example) to a current value of more than 380 ppm, an increase of more than 33%. This increase can largely be attributed to the burning of fossil fuels.
Either directly or indirectly, excess CO2 in our various ecosystems (atmosphere, land, water) is causing a lot of problems. CO2 is long lived and has a residence time in the atmosphere of about ten years. It is of concern due to its ability to trap energy that is radiated from the earth making it partially responsible for the documented rise in temperature of the earth's surface and the atmosphere. Recent models have shown that a doubling in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere causes an increase of ~1 °C (2 °F). An effect of an increase in the atmosphere's temperature is an increase in water vapor, the most important greenhouse gas. An increase in water vapor will lead to even more warming! This is an example of positive feedback. It will also affect clouds.
In addition to an increase in water vapor, an increase in temperature will cause more and faster melting of land and sea ice, which reflects incoming solar radiation. Without this reflection, much more solar radiation will reach the surface of the earth and add to the warming effect. This is another example of positive feedback. In addition, the melting of land ice is causing and will continue to cause an increase in sea level, which affects humans and many animal species. All of these consequences imply that increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will trigger other positive feedback mechanisms for an increase in the earth's temperature and an overall change in our climate.
Much of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere is taken up by the world's oceans, making the oceans a large CO2 sink. An increase in CO2 in the oceans, however, can have devastating effects as well. Increased CO2 in the ocean increases the concentration of carbonic acid, which decreases the pH (makes the ocean more acidic). Increasing acidity is causing a large problem for oceanic calcifying organisms such as coccolithophores, corals, crustaceans, and mollusks. They are not able to keep and produce their calcium carbonate "cell coverings" or "skeletons". This is just one consequence of increased ocean acidity, there are many others. As these species are reduced in numbers, they will no longer sequester CO2 dissolved in the oceans as part of their skeletons. In turn, because the organisms remaining in the ocean will no longer take up as much CO2, the ocean will begin to lose capacity to take up further CO2.
Changes in water chemistry such as the change in ocean acidity as well as an increase in the oceans' temperature is also having a devastating effect on coral reefs. We are seeing the phenomenon of coral "bleaching", or a loss in color of the beautiful coral reefs caused by the expulsion of the zooxantheallae, a type of photosynthesizing algae that lives in coral reef ecosystems. This then leads to a lighter or completely white appearance, leading to the term "bleached".
There is a delicate balance between CO2 in the atmosphere, the land, and in the ocean. The big mystery is not how much and where the carbon is, but what are the changes in the carbon reserves in each system and what are the processes that cause such changes. The North American Carbon Program (NACP) states:
Large-scale carbon fluxes among land ecosystems, the atmosphere, and the ocean reflect the responses of diverse ecosystems to climate, soils, natural disturbances, and direct and indirect human perturbations, including air pollution, elevated atmospheric CO2, and land use management. The size and distribution of carbon stocks are roughly known for the major ecosystem types in the United States. However, knowledge of changes in stocks, and the mechanisms that cause such changes, is far from complete.1
This statement not only applies to the United States, but everywhere in the world. We must try to understand when and where CO2 emission and uptake has occurred and is occurring in order to discern how the climate will evolve in the future. However, we must also try to understand the underlying mechanisms of emissions of CO2. In order to do this, we must develop ways to measure uptake and emission (flux) of CO2 from all types of land, (e.g., forests, agricultural areas, urban and suburban areas, peatland) and water (e.g., oceans, rivers, lakes). This is where Anasphere hopes to make some major contributions to carbon cycle science. We are developing a CO2 sensor and associated measurement platforms for measuring CO2 concentration and flux data in areas where there have previously been gaps in the data sets. The pairing of SmartTetherTM with the new CO2 sensor will yield a low-cost, mobile system capable of real-time CO2 flux measurements!
1 Wofsy, S.C. and R.C. Harris, 2002: The North American Carbon Program (NACP). Report of the NACP Committee of the U.S. Interagency Carbon Cycle Science Program. Washington, DC: US Global Change Research Program.