ScienceDaily (July 6, 2009) — Since NASA researchers began assembling the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) in the 1990s, the worldwide network of ground-based aerosol sensors has grown to 400 sites across seven continents.


Scientists contributing to the Maritime Aerosol Network use portable instruments to measure aerosols levels during research cruises. The map below shows the trajectories of the 50 cruises conducted so far. (Credit: NASA)

The trouble is that two-thirds of the planet is covered by ocean. And aerosols — the tiny atmospheric particles that can have an outsized impact on the climate — are just as likely to be found in the air above the oceans as they are over land.

Yet aerosols are scarcely measured over the oceans. Alexander Smirnov, an AERONET project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., hopes to change that. Smirnov is leading a new effort called the Maritime Aerosol Network (MAN), which will send researchers with portable photometers on oceanographic research cruises. The hand-held devices can detect the presence of aerosols in air by measuring how light scatters as it strikes the particles.

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