- Article written for CU-Boulder. See more at: http://www.colorado.edu/news/features/eight-questions-about-atmospheric-...
Stuck oil rigs, grizzly bears and changing weather patterns are just a few of the obstacles Gijs de Boer and his team of researchers encountered on the ground in Oliktok Point, Alaska.
De Boer, a scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), who works in NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, spent the last two weeks deploying the DataHawk 2, a small, lightweight, unmanned aircraft, designed by CU-Boulder’s Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. The researchers are using the unmanned aircraft to take measurements of temperature, humidity and winds over the lowest levels of the Arctic atmosphere to better understand the lifecycle of Arctic cloud properties, small-scale wind patterns and the vertical mixing of air between the surface and cloud height.
With little under a week left in his Alaska adventure, we asked de Boer about the research trip highlights.