我们之前发表过有关碳封存的博客，这也是我们密切关注的话题。本周早些时候您可能读到过关于 Saskatchewan 批准商业规模碳捕获和封存（CCS）项目的计划。…

I'm Nabil Saad and I'm a senior applications scientist at Picarro. I'll be blogging periodically about applications development around stable isotopes. There is a lot going on. So last month we delivered a brand new Picarro Combustion Module-Cavity Ring-Down Spectrometer (CM-CRDS) to the U.S. Customs and Borders Protection (…

Today the World Economic Forum announced that Picarro had been selected as a Technology Pioneer 2012. This is a tremendous honor and a proud day for all Picarro employees! The World Economic Forum is one of the most prestigious collaborative problem-solving organizations on the planet…

Final Exam Question #17 – What is a Picarro and how does it work?

As a Picarro sales engineer, I spend much of my time discussing our products with university professors, researchers, post-docs, Ph.D. candidates, grad students, etc. Picarro is connected to academia but we hadn't really connected yet with undegrads - the future scientists. That's changing. 

We have over time gotten a fair number of queries related to whether our CRDS analyzers can be used to determine whether an animal is corn-fed or grass-fed, and where that animal comes from. Consumers, restaurateurs, and food companies increasingly care a lot about what goes into the mouths of the meat they sell and whether that meat is local or from Brazil or Texas or wherever. Which is…

　　我们作为产品经理在 Picarro 要做的最有趣的事情之一就是花时间和客户一起去现场，了解他们如何使用我们的分析仪。通过这种方式，我们可以亲身体验在偏远地区进行户外科学活动的挑战 - 比如应对令人不快的野生动物的挑战。研究温室气体在环境中的通量绝对是要求具有充分户外研究经验的领域之一。所谓通量，我们指的是研究某一环境或地点中气体浓度（如甲烷、二氧化碳等）的变化，并利用这些变化深入了解生态系统行为、气候变化或我们的科学家客户密切关注的其它领域。

　　我和 Picarro 温室气体（GHG）分析仪工程师 David Langsam 在本周有机会陪同 Picarro 的合作伙伴和客户 - 来自麦迪逊威斯康星大学的 Ankur…

Rarely does a month go by without another major meat recall. In this case, the meat in question was shipped from Italy to Canada and contained dangerous levels of Lysteria bacteria.  And it was cooked, not raw, meat. We hope that no one gets…

The Malaspina Expedition may set the record for the most well-travelled Picarro analyzer. And we can't wait to see the science that emerges from this fascinating voyage. Here's the story. The research voyage marks the 200 Year Anniversary of the death of Alessandro Malaspina in 1810. Malaspina directed the first…

We just launched a new Food Tracebility and Food Safety mini-site and our timing sadly coincided with a tragedy in this arena. As the unfolding details of the horrible E.coli outbreak in Europe have highlighted, everything is…

　　温室气体二氧化碳 （CO2） 是人类使用碳基燃料活动的产物，例如家庭供暖、汽车和制造厂等等。但二氧化碳也有许多天然来源，如土壤、火山和所有呼吸的生物。因此，气候学家和公民科学家等都应该问的一个问题是：“你怎么知道二氧化碳的增加是由人类活动造成的？”

　　科学家有两种方法可以测量二氧化碳的“人类”来源（我们称之为人源二氧化碳）和二氧化碳的“自然”来源（我们称之为生物源二氧化碳）。第一种方法是使用放射性同位素碳-14（或 14C）。这种同位素在某些情况下用于测定物体的年龄（因此有“放射性碳年代测定法”一词），也可用于测定大气中二氧化碳的年龄。测量二氧化碳的年龄对于确定多少二氧化碳是人源的，多少是生物源的有多大作用? 很多人源二氧化碳是化石燃料燃烧的结果，就像它的名字所暗示的那样，已经非常非常古老了（有数千万到数亿年的历史）。…

　　气候科学家可以分为互相配合的两大组：实验者组和建模者组，其中实验者到世界各地收集气候数据（如二氧化碳水平、甲烷浓度、季节性温度、降雪率等）；建模者根据上述数据建立计算机模拟（懂行的人称之为“气候模型”），估算气候变量如何互相影响（例如，不断增加的二氧化碳是否会使温度升高至足以融化极地冰冠，导致海平面升高，使迈阿密将成为下一个亚特兰蒂斯？）。建模者依靠实验者的数据来指导、完善和验证其模拟，反过来，实验者依靠建模者的模拟来提出假设、明确实验并指导他们的数据收集任务。目前，建模者比实验者的人数要多得多，这可能是因为在桌面上设计模拟比前往北极花费数周时间进行测量要划算得多，耗费的体力也少得多。但这并不是说建模者的工作简单。全球气候是一个极其复杂的系统：无数的反馈循环将蝴蝶和它引发的飓风分开，因此，全球气候模拟可能是一项难于登天的脑力劳动。

　　…

　　这里有两个简单却能唤起您回忆的短语。翼下吊舱。无人机。心动吗？至少我们是这样的。6 月下旬，日本宇宙航空研究开发机构 （JAXA） 与位于加利福尼亚州帕萨迪纳市的美国国家航空航天局 （NASA） 下属的喷气推进实验室 （JPL） 合作展开了 Railroad Valley 替代标定活动。作为该活动的一部分，来自 NASA 艾姆斯研究中心的一组顶级科学家部署了三台 Picarro 分析仪。其中一台部署在一架阿尔法喷气机的翼下吊舱中，飞上了 25000 英尺的高空。还有一台部署在一架无人机的鼻锥体上。第三台在地面上的帐篷里。这次演习令人印象深刻，我们从中采集到了一些数据。这张照片上是 NASA 有效载荷集成工程师Richard Kolyer（左）在 NASA 艾姆斯研究中心的飞机库里向 Picarro 研发总监Chris Rella（右）展示无人机设备。此外，我想补充的是，…

　　当我写下这篇笔记时，我正坐在一架配备滑雪装备的 LC-130 大力神货机上。这架飞机来自纽约州空军国民警卫队第 109 空运联队，刚从北纬 77°的 NEEM 营地起飞，现在正飞越一天 24 小时都有太阳的格陵兰岛。我们与负责管理 NEEM 探险队的哥本哈根大学冰雪与气候中心已有长达四年的合作，因此，我有幸被邀请访问位于北格陵兰岛冰冠的 NEEM 营地。

　　在过去四年里的夏季，来自 14 个 NEEM…

　　一周时间内热浪就席卷了全国，这时发布一条关于绿色屋顶的微博再合适不过了。环保人士一直支持在建筑顶部种植植物，从而改善城市空气质量，减少城市热岛效应。听起来不错，但是绿色屋顶真正的影响是什么呢？它们会减少流入雨水渠的径流水吗？它们会净化径流水吗？它们会为城市降温吗？绿色屋顶会吸收或排放甲烷和其它温室气体吗？上周，我们向哥伦比亚大学 Lamont-Doherty地球观测站的一个团队运送了一台全新的温室气体通量分析仪，以帮助回答其中一些问题。这台分析仪现已安装在曼哈顿美国邮政总局大厦的绿色生活屋顶上，这是…

I've written a bit about using Picarro's Combustion Module for novel application methods and I wanted to let you know about a brand new product we are releasing - This is a CRDS analyzer that simultaneously measures stable isotope ratios of both carbon and its bound hydrogen directly from a combustion front-end. We're confident this new system is a significant advancement in capabilities…

In conversations with stable isotope researchers around the world a recurrent theme has been the problems caused by organics compounds in water samples, ranging from plant water extracts to alcoholic beverages.  For laser-based spectroscopic analyzers like Picarro, certain organic compounds, mostly alcohols, have caused spectral interference which distorted the reported isotope ratio.…

Prior to Picarro, I was on the academic path. I completed my PhD under the supervision of a brilliant scientist, then scored a post-doc position with a highly regarded researcher doing cutting-edge work that gained attention from the press (and also happened to be in Hawaii). But I rapidly discovered that I was not too gaga about the academic life. The grant writing process and being…

Editor’s note: This post comes to us from Benoit Wastine from the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE/IPSL) CEA-CNRS-UVSQ in France.  http://www.lsce.ipsl.fr/en/

It’s been four years now that I’ve been working with Picarro instruments for greenhouse gas (GHG) measurements. Four years of fruitful…

　　当我于 2009 年 9 月初加入 Picarro 时，光腔衰荡光谱（CRDS）用于同位素分析的技术才刚刚起步。不久之后，CRDS 的作用被研究人员证实，这些研究人员的实验室先前专门使用被认为最先进的同位素比质谱仪（IRMS）。这也是一种非常庞大的、与实验室绑定的系统。第一代 CRDS 同位素分析仪在精度上可与低端 IRMS 系统相提并论，但由于 Picarro CRDS 仪器总体使用操作简单、样品分析过程简洁，所以能大幅降低前期成本和使用寿命运营成本。

　　水同位素分析仪的商业成功得益于客户对技术的进一步推动，而研发收入的再投资赋予了我们在 Picarro 的目标和实现目标。在硅谷，…

Hi, there. I'm Kevin Cunningham and I am the product manager for isotopic carbon analyzers at Picarro. I got my PhD in laser spectroscopy (but don't hold that against me) so it has been thrilling to work at Picarro where laser spectroscopy has been applied to so many other fields. And, you may have noticed, we have been announcing some fantastic innovations lately and now its my turn. The…

When isotopes are mentioned in the same breath as law enforcement, the first thought that comes to mind is likely an atomic weapons-based attack using radioactive isotopes and what security forces can do to prevent it. That’s certainly the most publicized association between these words. However, it must be kept in mind that there are two kinds of isotopes: the…

It seems such a short time ago that Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) was expanded and enacted through Title XI of the Farm Bill 2008. Yet legislators have already started the committee meetings and town hall discussions that are framing the early debates on Farm Bill 2012. COOL was intended as a step forward to improve consumers’ ability of to make rational choices of the origin of their…

Greetings, Picarro Community!   My name is Jeff Forgeron, and I am a meteorology major at San Jose State University. I am currently interning for Picarro, and was recently asked to design and implement a weather station on the rooftop using an All-In-One Climatronics instrument. We have been using both the Picarro methane, acetylene…

The following is a transcript of my comments at the Nov 2^nd 2011 Stakeholders Meeting set up by The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) at the behest of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in compliance with…

During a speech on Food Safety¹, Michael Taylor, Deputy Commissioner for Foods for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) discussed the benefits of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point programs – HACCP.

HACCP is a core part of the prevention processes in the food and pharmaceutical industries. HACCP provides a methodology for identifying, characterizing and…

Bravo to CNN for a thought provoking program on cocoa farm child labor in the Ivory Coast. The missing component from the discussion is that there is a solution that would go much further than the current crop of toothless fair trade ‘certifications’. Stable…

Over the past few months, I’ve had the privilege of working with collaborators from Penn State, Climmod, Sigma Space, NOAA and others to demonstrate the power of using high precision instruments coupled with advanced modeling techniques to measure greenhouse gas emissions in cities. While many cities are taking a step in the right direction by volunteering to report their emissions…

Link to CityCarbon website showing current emissions in Davos

(hover over graph to the right for explanation)

02 February, 2012 Summary of Results

By combining concentration data from Picarro instruments with atmospheric modeling by Penn State and Climmod, we have measured…

In my role as an Applications Scientist here at Picarro, I’m always getting questions from customers like, “So what’s new?” and “What new technology breakthroughs are you guys working on?” To better address these questions, I spoke with Picarro Senior System Engineer Dr. Yonggang He about the recent technology innovations that have enabled us to boost the performance of our isotopic carbon…

It's commonly said here at Picarro that our customers have more interesting lives than we do -- we're always receiving fantastic photos of someone with one of our instruments in some remote and often idyllic field location. We thought it would be fun to periodically share some of the amazing locations where our customers are doing field work. Here are the five that we've come up with this…

The Centre for Ice and Climate at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark is one of the birthplaces of ice core science.  In 1954 Willi Dansgaard [1] suggested the correlation between the oxygen isotope ratio and temperature at which the precipitation was formed and postulated that past climate changes could be discerned by such measurements. Ten years later, in 1964, Willi Dansgaard…

Methane and City Carbon^TM have become buzzwords here at Picarro. Surely anyone familiar with carbon emissions and climate change knows that methane is a potent greenhouse gas and most emissions originate from cities. Nevertheless, I’ll bet most people would be shocked by the…

An instrument near the summit of Mauna Loa in Hawaii has recorded a climate milestone: the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere there has exceeded 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in 55 years of measurement—and probably more than 3 million years of Earth history.

While we, at Picarro, take a certain amount of pride in the instrument used to…

The embedded video, produced by Marsha Walton and reported by Miles O'Brien, describes how University of Colorado meteorologist David Noone and his team are working to understand how water moves around the planet. According to the accompanying article, "The measurements are made using an optical measurement technology which has only recently become available, and…

Gloria Jacobson, Picarro product manager for greenhouse gas analyzers, has been very busy lately. As the picture shows, she has been testing products in nearby marsh lands. In addition, she has discussed field tests with independent scientists, and attended several conferences in the U.S. and China. Over the next few weeks, she will be sharing her insights through a series of blog…