Clouds over the arctic
Dr. Paty Matrai’s research team prepares to deploy a weather balloon in the sky over arctic sea ice to collect cloud water samples for analysis. Courtesy of Thorsten Mauritsen
Dr. Paty Matrai’s research team prepares to deploy a weather balloon in the sky over arctic sea ice to collect cloud water samples for analysis. Courtesy of Thorsten Mauritsen
Polar researcher and Bigelow Senior Research Scientist Dr. Paty Matrai will lead a Tuesday, July 31, Café Scientifique discussion titled “Anatomy of an Arctic Cloud — Sea Ice, Aerosols, and Microgels,” in the Boothbay Harbor Opera House at 86 Townsend Ave. in Boothbay Harbor beginning at 6 p.m.
Matrai will discuss her recent research about the role that little-understood particles known as marine microgels have in cloud formation over the Arctic Ocean, and the influence of marine algae on the Arctic climate system as a whole.
“Marine microgels were only discovered about two decades ago,” Matrai said. “Although they exist on an infinitesimally small ‘nano’ scale, they’re extremely abundant. Our research is showing that these tiny, three-dimensional gels are seeding clouds in the Arctic and are determining the heat distributing and light reflecting properties of clouds.”
Matrai leads a research team in Bigelow’s Air-Sea Interactions Laboratory and has been collaborating on the study with colleagues at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, the Department of Meteorology in Stockholm University, and the Department of Environment in Madrid.
Matrai holds a Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, has been chief scientist on a series of multi-national oceanographic research expeditions to the Arctic, and heads a research initiative known as the O-Buoy Project, which is deploying the first network of robust, unattended atmospheric chemistry monitoring buoys throughout the Arctic Ocean designed to send continuous measurements in this remote area back to the laboratory.
Matrai is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the International Geosphere Biosphere Program (IGBP), one of the largest international earth sciences programs in the world, as well as an elected officer of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography, the leading professional organization in the field of aquatic sciences.
The Laboratory’s Café Scientifique gatherings are informal discussions about scientific issues and society, current research and the latest news from the field. They are free and open to the public, with beer, wine and soda available for purchase.
The complete 2012 summer Café Scientifique program is available on the Bigelow Laboratory’s website.
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