December 10, 2001

SAFARI 2000 CAPTURES POLLUTION AND CLIMATE INTERACTIONS

During the year 2000, above average seasonal rainfall spurred vegetative growth in South Africa, providing more fuel for biomass burning and adding pollution to the atmosphere. The increased levels of pollution created health hazards and some smoke plumes traveled one-third of the way around the world.

A press briefing highlighting these and other findings from The Southern African Regional Science Initiative (SAFARI 2000) will be held on Wednesday, December 12, at 2:00 p.m. PST at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, in San Francisco, Calif. The event will be held in room 112 of the Moscone Convention Center.

SAFARI 2000 focused on investigating the coupled land-atmosphere processes associated with the emission, transport, transformation, deposition and impact of southern African aerosols and trace gases. During the last 2 years, NASA was a major participant in several SAFARI 2000 field campaigns providing satellite, airborne and ground-based observations and scientific analyses for the studies.

The panelists at the briefing will be:

• Harold Annegarn, Atmosphere & Energy Research Group, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
• Robert Scholes, Environmentek CSIR, Pretoria, South Africa
• Michael King, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
• Robert (Bob) Swap, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

Media can register for the briefing at the AGU pressroom, Room 111 of the Moscone Center, beginning Monday, December 10 at 7:30 a.m. For more information contact Harvey Leifert, AGU Public Information Manager, Tel. 202-777-7507, E-mail: hleifert@agu.org. After December 9, contact the AGU press room at Tel. 415-905-1007; fax: 415-905-1008.

Visualizations of the SAFARI 2000 observations will be broadcast on NASA-TV on Wednesday, December 12. The video file airs at noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. ET. NASA TV is available on GE-2, transponder 9C at 85 degrees West longitude, with vertical polarization. Frequency is on 3880.0 megahertz, with audio on 6.8 megahertz.

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Contacts:

Cynthia M. O?Carroll
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Phone: 301/614-5563
E-mail: Cynthia.M.OCarroll.1@gsfc.nasa.gov

Rob Gutro
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Phone: 301/286-4044 or AGU Press Room 415/ 905-1007
E-mail: rgutro@pop900.gsfc.nasa.gov

This text derived from http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/topstory/20011210safari2000.html

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