Meet AC3, Ewan Crosbie's New Cloud Water Collector
Meet AC3, the Axial Cyclone Cloud water Collector, and its creator, Ewan Crosbie!
Crosbie, a UA HAS alumnus, used steel powder and a process called laser sintering--essentially a 3-D printing process with steel--to make a new instrument which will sample cloud water in a more pristine (less contaminated) state than previously achievable.
As a Postdoctoral Researcher with the NASA Langley Research Center, Crosbie works with a large group of scientists on the North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study, or NAAMES project.
Their mission? To fully understand the chemistry, biology, and the physics--and the atmospheric and hydrologic science--of very complex interactions between the ocean and its phytoplankton and the atmosphere which, in turn, affects cloud cover and, ultimately, our planet's climate.
Why should we care about the phytoplankton in our oceans? And why would that have anything to do with clouds? To learn why Ewan created the AC3, watch this 2-minute NASA video about NAAMES and the phytoplankton-cloud connection.
In this extended video, Ewan explains why he studies clouds and how he created his new instrument, the AC3.
Good luck, Ewan, with the AC3 and all your future projects!
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Crosbie completed his PHD degree in atmospheric sciences at the UA in 2015 under the direction of Armin Sorooshian, HAS Joint Associate Professor in Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences. If you're interested in this type of research, you can follow Ewan Crosbie on Google Scholar.