UMBS Field Study - Round 1

Looking up to the top of the 100ft tower

Daniel Gardner (me), Nate May, Professor Kerri Pratt and Professor Andy Ault all traveled to the University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS) in Pellston, Michigan to begin a summer field campaign studying the size distribution, concentration, and composition of aerosol particles in the region. Also joining us was Professor Steve Bertman from Western Michigan University and Stephanie Schmidt, an REU student from Michigan State University, spending her summer up as an REU student at UMBS.

The main site of the study is the PROPHET (Program for Research on Oxidants: PHotochemistry, Emissions, and Transport), a 100 foot tower reaching above the treetops with a wide variety of instrumentation and lines for pulling gases and particles down to the lab at the base of the tower.

The inside of the PROPHET lab with all current instruments

The gas and particle lines - covered with reflective insulation

Since the groups involved with the study will be analyzing both gases and particles, two separate lines were needed coming down the tower. A glass manifold is already installed on the tower from a previous study, and needed to be thoroughly cleaned after a long winter, as many bugs had flown into the pipeline and died. Cleaning a 100+ foot glass pipeline is no small task. It required a highly advanced piece of technology: a rag with 100 ft of rope tied to either side. Two teams were set up, one at the top of the tower and one at the bottom. The rag was dropped down and pulled back up the tube several times to scrub it clean. A bucket of water was lifted to the top of the tower to clean the rag in between each scrub. While cleaning and reassembling the pipeline, we had to pick up the pace, as a rainstorm was approaching, and it is quite unsafe to be on the top of the tower, as rain can make tower slippery and the descent unsafe.

The insluated copper tube sticking out of Lakeside Lab

The next step was to install a 100ft copper tube for the particle line, which was also a daunting task. The top of the copper coil was attached to a pulley system, and slowly lifted to the top of the tower, while the coil was straightened out. The tubing was secured to the tower with high strength cable ties, and then the entire length was wrapped with foam insulation and reflective tape to keep the temperature inside constant.There aerosol line was brought inside the lab on the ground, where it will connect to a variety of instruments. Only a few were set up so far - a Aerodynamic Particle Sizer (APS) and a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS) - two instruments designed to measure the size distribution of the particles. We will return in the future with many more instruments to add.

We also set up the same set of instruments at another location - at Lakeside Lab - a research facility located on the shore of Douglas Lake at UMBS. We set up another 10 feet of copper tubing to stick out the window of the lab, and connected it to the same instruments (APS + SMPS). This way we can compare the sizes of particles from above the canopy vs particles from the lake.




We would like to thank Professor Bertman for all of his help in setting up all the lines and instruments at the two labs, and Stephanie for monitoring all of the instruments while we are not there!

Daniel Gardner (Left), Stephanie Schmidt (Right)

Stephanie (Left), Professor Bertman (Center), Professor Andy Ault (Right)