Oct. 5, 2000-- For the next four weeks, 50 to 75 people will be out in the Salt Lake Valley looking at the blackness of our night sky. But they won't be using their eyes.
Science Specialist Ed Yeates tells us about this unique project.
When the sun goes down, a group of researchers will be staying up all night - night after night - doing some very unique experiments.
For the rest of October, be aware of things that go bump in the night.
But never fear. The shadows are not Halloween creatures - but scientific instruments measuring nightime things in our atmosphere.
Scientists from Washington State University, the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Lab and the University of Utah will study fog and pollution - not in daylight - but at night.
Researchers say the Salt Lake basin is the perfect "living" laboratory.
CHRIS DORAN, PACIFIC NORTHWEST LABORATORY: "IT HAS THE VALLEY OR BASIN SETTING WHICH WE'RE PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN - THAT DEFINATELY CONTRIBUTES TO THE RETENTION OF COLD AIR OR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THESE COLD AIR POOLS AND INVERSIONS WHICH CAUSE AIR QUALITY PROBLEMS."
Researchers know a lot about pollution in the daytime - but it's night when inversions become stronger - more complicated. Wind patterns, the movement of cold air, and the sublte shiftings of fog and particulates in the air at night are what scientists now want to measure.
They'll send balloons with instruments high into the sky.
Box and barrell-like devices will bounce sounds off the atmosphere.
Inside this portable lab - they'll listen and watch and measure. All the data could lead to more accurate forecasting models - where and how do fog and pollutants concentrate and who will it affect.
"WHEN ROADS ICE UP FOR EXAMPLE AFTER A SNOW STORM, YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW AT WHAT TIME THE COLD POOLS WILL BREAK UP AND THE ROADS WILL START TO WARM UP."
Aircraft, truckers, people with respiratory problems. They'll all benefit from better and more specific inversion forecasts.
Working in graveyard shifts, researchers will work 18 hours per night from about 4:00 in the afternoon until 10:00 a.m. the following morning.
