Elwood took part in a visibility study at the Grand Canyon. It involved several groups and a number of instruments measuring particle concentrations, gas phase concentrations, visibility, ambient temperatures, etc. etc.

Get a satellite view of the Grand Canyon.

If you are interested in more information about the Grand Canyon National Park, visit the website of the National Park Services, or the official Grand Canyon website.

Our instrument was positioned in a trailer in a nice clearing about a mile from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, near Grandview Point.
 
 

Prof. Kim Prather, Don-Yuan Liu and Dave Suess are working on the instrument.
 
 
 
 
 
 

The main goal of the study was to determine the influence of particle pollution on the visibility in the National Park. So here are a few pictures that show what could be seen...
 
 
 
 

If you want to see more pretty pictures, follow this link to the picture page (may load slowly ...). If you have a slow connection, but still wish to see some pictures, follow this link to a thumbnail page of the same pictures.
 
 

The crew of the study and the "proud father" of the instrument pose in front of the Grand Canyon at Shoshone Point. From left to right: Dave Suess (Graduate Student), Don-Yuan Liu (Graduate Student), Joseph Mayer (Head Machinist), Markus Gälli (Postdoc). Missing in this picture is Prof. Kim Prather (she took the picture!)
 
 

After a day out in the field, the poor graduate students were exhausted and had to get a good nights sleep.
 
 

On our trip back to lab, one of our cars broke down. Seeing this picture, that was no big surprise!