A University of Miami research facility in Barbados is the source of one of the largest aerosol filter archives in the world and provides vital insight into the transport of Saharan dust particles across the Atlantic.
A University of Miami research facility in Barbados is the source of one of the largest aerosol filter archives in the world and provides vital insight into the transport of Saharan dust particles across the Atlantic.
Located inside two shipping containers on the eastern end of a Barbados promontory, the lab sports a cookie-cutter, box-shaped exterior that belies its high-tech innards.
When University of Miami researcher Haley Royer first saw the facility two years ago, she was a bit surprised by its humble façade.
But then, she walked inside and took a closer look at the site’s monitoring equipment.
Among the cutting-edge gadgetry she saw: high-volume aerosol samplers, particle size analyzers, and a sun photometer that had arrived direct from NASA.
“Looking at the place from the outside, you wouldn’t think it’s the source of one of the world’s largest aerosol filter archives, or that it’s been absolutely vital to our understanding of African dust transport,” said Royer, a Ph.D. student at the University’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. “But it just shows that sometimes all it takes to do good science is some creativity, ingenuity, and passion.”
For more than half a century, scientists at the Rosenstiel School’s Barbados Atmospheric Chemistry Observatory (BACO) have documented the summertime transport of Saharan dust particles across the Atlantic to the Caribbean Basin and South America, collecting the minute portions of matter in filters mounted on a 55-foot tower, analyzing them in labs, and studying their impact on clouds, climate, and air quality.
Read more at: University of Miami
