Mike Dziobak, research associate, and Yanyan Lu, graduate student, with Dr. Richard Honrath of Michigan Technology University, and I were out to set up an experiment for another researcher, Dr. Sarah Green, who could not be present. We dug little snow pits of 40 cm deep to place sealed glass rods horizontally in the snow layers. Within the sealed rods was nitrate in a solution that would not allow freezing. The purpose was to expose those compounds to different amounts of light as the depth decreased. The rods are sealed to prevent any reactions other than those caused by the light.
Nitrogen compounds can affect the cycling of tropospheric nitrogen and ozone.
The polar regions were first thought to be a 'sink,' or inert reservoir, of these compounds. But if current hypotheses are correct, the polar regions take the nitrogen compounds that float in from industrial emissions and keep them active photochemically. Tomorrow we will recover the glass rods and pack them so that they have no more light to cause further reactions for Dr. Honrath to take back to Dr. Green. This is an indirect email and I do not see your address automatically. Working with sealing the tubes in the little snow pit test.