Will it rain? When? How deep is the cloud? Will it grow deeper? How much? A lot of questions without answers. But the soundings observing meteorological variables can provide us some quantification. So far what we have experienced during the CloudRoots campaign at the Amazonia are clear mornings. After lunch,…
I want one! This was the enthusiastic reaction of a Brazilian student after her first encounter with a scintillometer at the CloudRoots campaign in Amazonia. The scintillometer is indeed a special instrument that deserves admiration. It measures the turbulent transports of heat, water vapour and CO2 through the atmosphere over…
Written by: Professor Thomas Roeckmann from IMAU (Utrecht University) The key facilities at the ATTO camp are a sleeping building, a kitchen and a building with bathrooms and showers. Except for the bathrooms, none of the buildings have side walls, but the walls are half open. They are covered with…
Written by: David Bonell (Thenician IMAU, Utrecht University) A troop of howling monkeys wakes the ATTO camp up just in time for breakfast at 5:45 AM. Ham, cheese, eggs, and a colorful line-up of tropical fruits invitingly await on the kitchen’s tables. This week, MAQ and IMAU are working side…
Written by: Raquel Gonzalez (PhD Meteorology and Air Quality, Wageningen University) English or better Spanglish, Portuguese with Amazonian accent, Spanish with Iberian accent or much, much better forget about languages and attempt that the knowledge is properly transferred in a Babel-melting-pot. We opt for the second: the physics and biological…
Monday morning 0600. Dawn breaks over the metropolis that is Manaus. The city is fully awake and the sound of accelerating scooters, heavy engines and car horns already fill the air. If it weren’t for the heat, humidity and dots of convection that already punctuate the sky, this could be…
We are constantly encouraged to cross borders. To move out of our comfort zone to become creative, original and innovative in our research. These borders are always abstract, undefined and uncharted. They force us to develop personally as scientists, but also to work differently in a team to be more…
This blog was written by Alwin Gerritsen, Kalyan Guntuboyina (WUR) and Hari Krishna Vommi (Government of Andhra Pradesh, Department of Agriculture) Climate-Smart Agriculture entails both the reduction of the environmental and climate impact of agricultural activity and the development of food production methods and crops that are well adapted to…
This blog was written by Robbert Moonen, researcher at Utrecht University and a member of the CloudRoots Amazonia field experiment. Utrecht, May 27th. Good news! After months of preparations, packing, and bureaucratic efforts our instrumentation has touched down on Brazilian shores. While our measurements at the Brazilian Amazon Tall Tower…
Manaus, February 2022, 8 AM. Already hot and humid. The CloudRoots Amazonia 22 field experiment starts. It is planned for August 2022, but preparations are well in advance due to the complexity of the experiment. With a team of the Meteorology of Air Quality Group together with two groups from…