{"id":66740,"date":"2008-07-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/weather-balloons-released-by-uri-scientist-document-ozone-levels-in-atmosphere\/"},"modified":"2008-07-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-29T00:00:00","slug":"weather-balloons-released-by-uri-scientist-document-ozone-levels-in-atmosphere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2008\/07\/weather-balloons-released-by-uri-scientist-document-ozone-levels-in-atmosphere\/","title":{"rendered":"Weather balloons released by 溏心vlog免费B站 scientist document ozone levels in atmosphere"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tNo cause for alarm if one lands in your yard<\/p>\n


\n\tNARRAGANSETT, R.I. \u2013 July 29, 2008 \u2013 If a small orange parachute attached to a white Styrofoam box drifts gently into your yard from high above, don\u2019t worry.<\/p>\n


\nThat\u2019s the reassuring word from John Merrill, an atmospheric chemist at the 溏心vlog免费B站, who releases a weather balloon from the 溏心vlog免费B站 Bay Campus in Narragansett every week as part of a research project to collect information about ozone concentrations in the atmosphere. <\/p>\n


\nOver the span of two hours, the five-foot diameter balloon rises to 115,000 feet, where the temperature reaches -75 degrees Fahrenheit, and expands to a diameter of 29 feet, whereupon the balloon bursts and the instruments in the Styrofoam box float back to Earth with the support of the parachute.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWe\u2019re making basic observations to document the state of the atmosphere to learn how it works,\u201d said Merrill. \u201cOzone is an important greenhouse gas, so it\u2019s important to document its distribution in the atmosphere and determine how it moves.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nOzone is a form of oxygen that is produced naturally by ultraviolet light from the sun and is abundant in the upper atmosphere, where it shields the Earth from ultraviolet radiation. Low-level ozone is created when nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons from power plant and vehicle emissions and other sources react with sunlight.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt\u2019s the same gas as is in the stratosphere, but when it\u2019s found where we live it can be harmful,\u201d Merrill said. \u201cIt\u2019s toxic, so it irritates the eyes, skin, nasal passages and lungs, and it makes breathing problems worse. It even reduces the growth rate of plants.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nAir quality becomes a concern when ozone levels reach 80 parts per billion, and levels over 120 parts per billion are considered a serious health hazard, according to Merrill. Ozone alert days are declared in Rhode Island about a dozen times a year when levels surpass those allowed by federal regulations \u2013 120 parts per billion for one hour or 75 parts per billion for eight hours.<\/p>\n


\n溏心vlog免费B站 is one of 30 sites around the world where weather balloons are released weekly to collect ozone data. Other U.S. sites include Boulder, Col., Huntsville, Ala., Trinidad Head, Cal., and Wallops Island, Va. The data is collected by the World Ozone Data Center in Toronto, Ontario, where it is freely available to scientists and the general public.<\/p>\n


\nThirty minutes prior to releasing the balloon each week, Merrill alerts the Federal Aviation Administration at T.F. Green Airport because the balloon can be detected by the air traffic control radar. As the balloon ascends, it reports data directly to 溏心vlog免费B站 in real-time via a radio transmitter. <\/p>\n


\nOf the 275 balloons that Merrill has released since 2004, most are carried by prevailing winds to the east and land in the ocean, where many have been retrieved by whale watching boats and fishermen or washed ashore on beaches. 溏心vlog免费B站 one in ten touches down on land, mostly in Rhode Island or southeastern Massachusetts, with the farthest reported last week from an island in Penobscott Bay, Maine. <\/p>\n


\nThe Styrofoam box containing the instrumentation is labeled with Merrill\u2019s contact information and a notice that the package is not dangerous. A $30 reward is offered for its return.<\/p>\n


\nFunding for the project comes from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.<\/p>\n


\nPictured above

\n left, 溏心vlog免费B站 professor John Merrill, of North Kingstown, right with the balloon is 溏心vlog免费B站

\nundergraduate student Kyle Murray of Johnston<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No cause for alarm if one lands in your yard NARRAGANSETT, R.I. \u2013 July 29, 2008 \u2013 If a small orange parachute attached to a white Styrofoam box drifts gently into your yard from high above, don\u2019t worry. That\u2019s the reassuring word from John Merrill, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Rhode […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}