Multimedia Gallery
Research Using Unmanned Aircraft
Research Using Unmanned Aircraft
A research team from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and led by atmospheric chemist V. Ramanathan, achieved a novel way of observing the potentially damaging effects of pollution through the use of unmanned aircraft. These small and inexpensive unmanned aircraft are used to take samples of dust and pollution from within and from all sides of clouds.
After conducting a field campaign in March 2006 in the skies over the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean south of India, Ramanathan and his team concluded that the global warming trend caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases is a major contributor to the melting of Himalayan and other tropical glaciers. To learn more about this research, see National Science Foundation press release 07-087,
visit the "Brown Cloud Particulate Pollution Amplifies Global Warming." (Date of Image: 2006)
Credit: V. Ramanathan and H. Nguyen
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