“Alert 2000” will probe mysteries of arctic haze

MONTREAL — Next Wednesday an international team of scientists takes off for Ellesmere Island and the Canadian Forces station at Alert to begin a research project in the cold, dark, polar night.

Their project, called “Alert 2000,” is intended to shed light on the amazing and baffling atmospheric changes triggered by the sun’s return in mid-March.

Then, sunlight and warmth cause some gases in the air to vanish and make others precipate into the snow pack.

Scientists first noticed this phenomenon during the 1980s when they went to Alert to study “arctic haze,” the foggy mist of pollutants that emerges in polar regions at the end of the long winter.

They can now say that the set of changes linked to the reappearance of the sun is extremely complex, and they also believe that the secret to understanding these changes lies in the snow.

But they’re still uncertain about just what processes are at work.

They’re not yet ready to say whether the end result of these changes in the atmosphere is positive or negative. These chemical reactions could either be cleansing the air or releasing pollutants into the environment.

So those involved in Alert 2000 can only talk about “question marks” and pu les.

“Of course, if we had all the answers, we wouldn’t go to Alert,” said Alan Gallant, a chemical engineer with Environment Canada who’s in charge of the project’s logistics. “There may be revelations coming out from this study.”

Gallant is one of 29 scientists from Canada, the U.S., Germany, Japan, Italy and France who are involved in Alert 2000.

The project is officially sponsored by the Atmospheric Environmental Services department of Environment Canada, but foreign participants will pay for about two-thirds of the project’s $500,000 price tag.

Scientists consider Ellesmere to be an ideal place for studying atmospheric changes, although the environment there is far from pristine. In fact, it’s as polluted as many places in the South.

Yet the chemical reactions are much easier to see there because they occur more slowly in very cold temperatures.

“You can sort of take things in slow motion,” Gallant said.

Alert is also the site of a “Special Studies Laboratory.” This lab is the most northerly and — according to Gallant — the “single most important” facility of its kind in North America.

Part of a much larger global atmospheric watch program, the SSL lab’s research team monitors arctic haze, trans-boundary air pollution, and ozone depletion by measuring the presence of various substances in the atmosphere.

Project organizers also have set up an ice camp four kilometers from Alert where scientists can conduct other experiments.

During the so-called dark phase of the project, which lasts until February 21, they plan to look closely at the frozen ocean surface, examining its physical and chemical make-up.

When the sun rises, they’ll then study the reactions that causes the surrounding atmosphere to radically change.

Mercury, for example, seems to drop out of the air into the snow, a “very strange curiosity, in the words of Canadian scientist and project organizer, Jan Bottenheim.

The team is particularly interested in understanding why ozone gas completely disappears within 24 hours after sunrise.

High levels of ground-level ozone, which can cause respiratory difficulties, are an increasing problem in many southern industrial nations.

The study may eventually help climatologists to better predict air quality.

And the analysis of the snow near Alert could provide the “missing link” of evidence that scientists need to better understand what ice samples from glaciers have to say about climates in the past.

After a complete review of all the data collected, in 2001 researchers should be ready to make some conclusions on the scientific significance of the High Arctic sunrise.

“I can’t say if it’s a good thing or a bad thing,” said Paul Shepson, one of the scientists heading to Alert. “But it’s good that we’re taking a step closer to seeing how nature works.”