St. Lawrence University Acquisition of Instrumentation for Monitoring Climate, Atmospheric, and Aquatic Environmental Processes in Northern New York

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0421249GaoThis Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) to St. Lawrence University (SLU) is for acquisition of Instrumentation for Monitoring Climate, Atmospheric, and Aquatic Environmental Processes in Northern New York. Funds from this award will be used to complete the acquisition and installation of a networked climate, atmospheric, and aquatic monitoring (CAAM) program for use as part of the university wide Integrated Science Education Initiative, in the research and education programs of several faculty members, and for research conducted by undergraduates. Together with equipment already acquired, the CAAM facility will consist of four major parts: 1) a network of three weather stations and portable field sensors to monitor local climate and to assist air quality modeling; 2) an air quality monitoring station in the watershed to support the monitoring of acid rain/snow deposition and a wide range of chemical species in gaseous and particulate matter in ambient air; 3) a mobile network of water quality monitoring probes that allow for simultaneous and continuous monitoring of chemical and hydrological conditions along the Little River and for other rivers and lakes of research interest to our faculty members; and 4) an enhanced analytical capability to support the more intensive identification and quantification of a wide range of chemical species in the air and water samples collected by the monitoring projects. With funds provided by this grant, CAAM facility will be completed through the acquisition and installation of: 1) a third, permanent weather station; 2) a computer system to automate data collection from the weather stations; 3) additional sensors for the two existing portable weather stations to bring them up to research grade; 4) a URG ambient air weekly sampler; 5) a Varian atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS) to replace an existing 17-year old AAS; 6) two additional Hydrolab multiprobes; and 7) a research-grade Dionex ion chromatograph to replace an existing 13-year old non-automated instrument. The proposed CAAM program will have several broad impacts including: 1) the undergraduate student research culture at SLU will be improved since the program will enhance the research capacity for faculty on campus and foster more faculty-student collaborative research; 2) student learning will improve as more data can be collected and analyzed in courses; 3) the CAAM program will generate large data sets that will be freely available to collaborators at the Clarkson University Potsdam site, local schools, and other community members; and 4) through our association with the Great Lakes Research Consortium, our faculty will be able to make our CAAM data available for broader regional use and comparison and encourage collaborative research with other scientists from the Great Lakes Region.***