Bill Hogarth , Acting Assistant Administrator for NOAA Fisheries , led over 50 NOAA volunteers in marsh clean-up and restoration activities. Garry Mayer, Deputy Director of Office of Habitat Conservation , takes a break with Morgan State University students. Each year we delay, we lose a year of history . That's how Boulder scientist, Jim Butler, explains the urgency of his recent work in the South Pole. The team wants to know what air quality was like over the last century.
Timing is critical because as snow turns to ice it's no longer possible to draw air from the snow.
It is the pockets of air trapped in snowpacks that provide scientists with a historical record of gases present in the atmosphere. Researchers analyze this record for clues to how human activity has influenced atmospheric processes. In just a few years, samples will no longer be available for the entire 20th century, a time of rapid population, agricultural and industrial growth. Published studies by the same team indicate that the atmosphere's composition has changed dramatically over the past 100 years, presumably because of human activities. Large amounts of the historic air will be stored in a NOAA air archive in Boulder.