E VEN ON THE CLEAREST OF DAYS, THE scientists and engineers, was the very same that atmosphere over our heads buoys up thou- the space agency had used to discover the “ozone sands of tons of nature’s crud — pollen, hole” (really, a roughly 50% reduction in ozone con-mold spores, microscopic fragments of decayed centration) that appears during the coldest winter plants, insect parts, wind-borne dust, water vapor, months in the stratosphere above the Antarctic. smoke from forest fires, and volcanic ash — that Indeed, back then, this spectrometer was NASA’s we collectively call haze. Of course, we humans principle source of information about the health of contribute more than our share as well. Smog is the the protective sheath of molecules that block the best-known example of artificial haze. sun’s most damaging ultraviolet rays.
Although many cities monitor the quality of their NASA was understandably reluctant to admit that local atmosphere, shockingly little is known about it had been shown up by an amateur. However, to how haze is changing globally because, believe it their credit, when the red-faced researchers finally or not, no one is coordinating haze observations did own up to the error, they made Mims a col-around the world. Considering how important these laborator. NASA sent this dogged citizen scientist observations could be for the health of all life on to Brazil, Hawaii, and the western United States to our planet, this lack of attention is not only shame- study the atmospheric impacts of biomass burning ful, it could also be downright dangerous. and volcanic eruptions using his clever collection of
All this may soon change, thanks to the inven- low-cost homemade instruments. tiveness of one of America’s greatest living citizen scientists. Forrest M. Mims III is renowned as a science writer for mentoring more than a million professional and amateur gadgeteers through a series of wonderfully earthy, hand-drawn how-to booklets that he wrote for RadioShack. And even though he has no formal scientific training, Mims is a living legend amongst amateur scientists for his knack at besting the professionals at their own game.
In 1991, for instance, while standing in his backyard testing a $200 hand-held device of his own design, Mims discovered that an instrument costing perhaps a thousand times more than his, flying aboard the Nimbus 7 satellite, was steadily drifting out of calibration. That highly sensitive spectrophotometer, developed by NASA’s elite corps of
One of Mims’ ingenious gadgets is his Visible Haze Photometer. This remarkable device can be cobbled together from an old videocassette case and about $20 worth of RadioShack parts. Moreover, it’s so simple to make that even the most hardened technophobe can put it together in an afternoon. This instrument could revolutionize haze research by opening the field to all comers: citizen scientists, science fair students, and weather watchers of all stripes.
The Visible Haze Photometer exploits the fact that the sun is the perfect probe for measuring haze. The intensity of sunlight striking the top of
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