ATom Postcard - Punta Arenas to Ascension Island

Atmospheric scientist Róisín Commane and Principal Investigator Steven Wofsy both of Harvard University sent back a video postcard from the Atlantic legs of the Atmospheric Tomography, or ATom, mission. The science team left Christchurch, New Zealand, and traveled past Antarctica to Punta Arenas, Chile, at the bottom of the world. Then they went up the Atlantic Ocean to Ascension Island, just south of the equator. This is the third of four video postcards.
The ATom mission aboard NASA’s DC-8 aircraft and flying laboratory is sampling world-wide in one of the most extensive surveys of the atmosphere to date, measuring over 200 gases as well as airborne particles. The science team is particularly interested in methane, tropospheric ozone and black carbon particles, which have strong effects on climate and which all have both human and natural origins.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space flight Center/Matthew Radcliff
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