News - NASA Langley Research Center

GLOBE NEWS

GLOBE Breadcrumb

Sunphotometer Study by NASA Student Intern

Sep 05, 2012

Student Summer Study of Aerosols

Alec Weisman, a student at Baldwin Wallace University, recently completed an internship at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA. During his summer internship, Alec worked with Dr. Margaret Pippin and Dr. Ali Omar to study aerosol optical depth (AOD).

Alec used GLOBE's Aerosol Sunphotometer and compared observations using this hand-held device with AERONET (NASA's Aerosol Robotic Network) AOD and Department of Environmental Quality PM2.5 measurements. Alec found strong correlation between GLOBE sunphotometer 505 nm and AERONET level 1.5 AOD at 500nm. By graphing the data, Alec found the corresponding slope to be 0.9446, indicating that the correlation is nearly 1:1. He also concluded that for AOD values less than 0.4 the correlation is the strongest.

During this summer experience Alec not only conducted research using GLOBE protocols, but he became GLOBE certified as a pre-service teacher. "I've been fortunate," Alec says, "to fall under the guidance of some great people throughout my life and because of their help I've been able to do some great things." Alec was selected for the internship after applying through NASA's One Stop Shopping Initiative: Student Online Application a for Recruiting Interns, Fellows, and Scholars (OSSI:SOLAR) program, found online at: https://intern.nasa.gov/solar/web/public/main/ .