Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 12/18/2007 - 10:06
Forums
South Pole Ozone Changes

Hello Ms. Bergolz this is Artak Abelian from Unis (T3). I read your latest journal that you have written on December 15th about collecting the cleanest air on earth. I read through it and thought that it was quite an interesting activity that you have done/written. I thought it was a great idea to to put all the air inside the Clean Air Sector, to preserve the air and to look for carbon monoxide. It was great that you ended up having one of the most clean air areas of the world and it was compared to all of the other clean areas of the world. I think that's a good accomplishment. I enjoyed reading this and many others in the future hopefully.

Sun, 12/23/2007 - 21:49

Elke Bergholz

Dear Artak from UNIS, Thank you for your response . I am glad you wrote down what you understood because now I have a chance to explain it to you better.
We did not put all the clean air in the Claen Air Sector. The Clean Air Sector is a designated area away from the station that is kept as clean as possible: no plane is allowed to fly over and no vehicle is allowed to come close to it unless they let us know before. This way the air is kept as clean as it can be for our samples. It is an open space that is protected that way against pollution. When we take samples we know it is the cleanest air sample on Earth and a perfect comparison for the rest of the world.
The fact that it is the cleanest air on Earth has to do with the fact that we are so far away from human impacts. The air in Antarctica is clean and dry and many scientists like to come here to do research. We are lucky to have a place like this and I hope it will stay that way.
Until later,
E. Bergholz