From the devastating forest fire polar bears cling to melting ice, there’s no shortage of shocking images to illustrate the need for action climate change. But collecting reliable data to track the rate of change — and help determine solutions — is much less straightforward.
Scientists at National Physics Laboratory in Teddington, South West London, is using precision monitoring to measure pollutants and track our impact on the planet more precisely than ever before.
The lab’s newest tool is Boreas, a laser spectrometer designed to collect and analyze methane – a greenhouse gas released by dozens of human activities, from agriculture to fuel burning. Whether. At a modest telecommunications tower in Heathfield, Surrey, Boreas works 24 hours a day in all weather conditions to sample large amounts of air. The machine uses a long tube filled with fine plastic particles, which are then cooled to -160 degrees Celsius, allowing researchers at NPL headquarters to freeze the methane particles from oxygen and nitrogen, which freeze. at much lower temperatures.
The aim is to determine the relative concentrations of different methane molecules and better understand the source of the pollutants, explains Emma Safi, a higher research scientist at NPL. “While previous instruments have been able to measure methane concentrations, that data doesn’t tell us much about what the methane emitters are,” she said.
Methane is a molecule consisting of one carbon atom surrounded by four hydrogen atoms (its chemical formula is CH4). However, there are different types of methane in the air, known as methane isotopes. “Different processes produce methane with very little variation in the relative amounts of each isotope, so the relative ratios of each isotope can be used as an indication of the source,” says Safi. its origin.
So far, the readings show the researchers what they were expecting: “We’re seeing methane that is characteristic of the northern hemisphere — relatively clean air from the Atlantic Ocean — and some local agricultural resources,” said Chris Rennick, also a senior research scientist on the Boreas team. “It depends on the wind direction on any given day.”
What makes Boreas unique is its potential: In the future, NPL hopes to build more devices like it and deploy them to different regions, including the Arctic, where it might be trapped large amounts of methane in the permafrost. Rennick explains: “We are using data from our Heathfield lab to contribute to the UK methane emissions estimate. “However, there are other networks in many other countries that will also benefit from the measurements that Boreas can take — which will allow the instrument to help reduce global methane emissions.”
Boreas is one of dozens of unique pollutant meters at NPL. One of the most historically significant is the Kibble Scale, a high-precision scale developed in the 1970s to compare electrical and mechanical power. Fifty years later, the device is being used to weigh individual air particles to determine methane concentrations.
However, the important role of researchers like those working at Boreas is not to conduct climate research, or even produce evidence of climate change. They are metrologists by trade — there to study and monitor metrology to keep it as accurate as possible.
