Michelle Cain is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Atmospheric Science in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, UK, and a Natural Environment Research Council policy placement fellow at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK. She completed her doctorate at the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, where she used both computer models and measurement data to study the transport of pollutants in the atmosphere. She is currently using these techniques to study pollutants in the atmosphere globally, including methane emissions in the Arctic. Posts will come from both Michelle and her colleagues working on the Arctic field work.
Arctic Methane: Going with the flow
by Dr Jennifer Muller, University of Manchester Sunday 22nd September. It is good to not expect everything to go according to plan. Last Sunday (22nd September), the plan had been to head up North and fly to Svalbard (~78 °N), land and refuel at Longyearbyen, and then sample and do more science in the Svalbard [...]
Arctic Methane: The ups and downs of sitting in the hot seat
Friday 20th September, morning. After yesterday’s transit to Kiruna and late afternoon wetland flight, today saw the first full day of MAMM ‘Science’ flying for the September 2013 campaign.
Arctic Methane: And so it begins…(again)
Thursday 19th September 2013, morning. Here we are again, in the Arctic for the final MAMM field campaign. Well, I’m actually not quite in the Arctic yet, as I’m currently on a train that has just departed from Boden, which is at about 65.5N, just half a degree south of the Arctic Circle.
Arctic Methane: MAMM Lapland air sampling road trip
By Dave Lowry and Nathalie Grassineau Part 1 – In the beginning – Tuesday Aug 13, 21:00 UT Reached Kiruna, Sweden, yesterday (Monday) afternoon having taken the early flight from Heathrow.
Arctic Methane: Flight Monday 19th AM/PM: Going home…
By Dr Jennifer Muller, University of Manchester The last day of the August aircraft MAMM campaign (19 August) was all about sampling the methane closer to home as well as actually getting back to Cranfield; leaving the Arctic wetland methane behind us (until the September campaign of course).
Arctic Methane: Flight Sunday 18th PM
As the Red Team member who was co-ordinating with the Blue Team during their flight, I must emphasise the crucial role I played in using the chat room to keep up to date with the Blue Team and their new plans, and then making a phone call to the TCCON site manager.
uBiome: Ethical Lapse or Not?
By Dr Sam Illingworth, University of Manchester Today marks the end of the August flying campaign for MAMM, a whilst there will be a transit back to the UK tomorrow (as well as hopefully some methane measurements over the off shore oil rigs in the North Sea), today’s flights are the last to be making [...]
Arctic Methane: Flight Saturday 17th PM
In this afternoon’s flight, we started off flying similar E-W transects to the latter part of this morning’s flight, to see what had changed in the intervening few hours.
Arctic Methane: Flight Saturday 17th AM
By Dr Sam Illingworth, University of Manchester Reading the last blog entry, which was written whilst we were in the air on the morning flight of Saturday 17th August, it was definitely advisable for Michelle to have taken a pre-emptive Kwells before take-off!
Arctic Methane: Flight Friday 16th PM
We followed exactly the same flight path as this morning’s flight. Credit to the amazing (auto) pilots! Like the earlier flight, we also saw gradual changes in the methane concentration as we traversed east to went and north to south.
Arctic Methane: Flight Friday 16th AM
By Dr Sam Illingworth, University of Manchester. The first full day of MAMM flying kicked off at 9 am local time, as the FAAM Atmospheric Research Aircraft (ARA) took to the skies to begin the morning’s measurements of wetland emissions.
Arctic Methane: A night in Stordalen wetland, Abisko
By Dr Rebecca Fisher, Royal Holloway University of London I’m writing this half way through a 24 hour air sampling campaign in the Stordalen wetland in Abisko, Sweden.
Arctic Methane: First science flight
Quick update on the first science flight, which took place yesterday (Thursday 15th August). We decided that all 6(!) mission scientists would go on this flight to kick off the campaign.
Arctic Methane: Transiting to Kiruna
By Dr Jennifer Muller, @jenniferbmuller I have been working on the FAAM BAe-146 research aircraft as instrument scientist for three years now and I am looking after an instrument that measures two greenhouse gases, methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O). Today was our first day of the aircraft MAMM campaign, and this morning (15 August) [...]
Arctic Methane: And in the blue corner…
By Grant Allen So here we are on another exciting expedition to the Arctic. One of my roles in the project is to plan the flights that we will do and to coordinate the wider flight planning team.
Arctic Methane: Mr Blue Sky
By Sam Illingworth. “Hey there mister blue, we’re so pleased to be with you. Look around see what you do, everybody smiles at you” During the (all too rapidly) approaching August and September MAMM flight campaigns I’ll be working as a mission scientist, a fascinating role that involves flight planning, communicating between the pilots and [...]
Methane and Mosquitoes – Blogging Bogs
By Euan Nisbet. While most of the MAMM team toil in the heavens above, fighting wayward coffee mugs as the pilots roll and pitch, some of us are down below in the murk, feeding poor undernourished boreal mosquitoes and moose flies.
Arctic methane: What’s the story?
The Arctic. What pops into your head when you hear those words? Polar bears, icebergs, freezing temperatures? These days, you might also think about the declining sea ice, and the possibility of the Northwest Passage opening up for ships.
Arctic Methane: Hello and welcome to the MAMM blog
by Professor John Pyle, Principal Investigator of the MAMM project, University of Cambridge. Methane is a key greenhouse gas; the Arctic is a key region for natural emissions of methane; high summer and autumn are key periods when emissions can peak and change rapidly.