PROJECTS: Amateur Scientist
asked me to give a talk about the Scientific
American affair at a meeting at University of the
Nations (UofN) in Hawaii. That trip provided the
opportunity to calibrate my sun photometers
and ozone instruments at NOAA’s world-famous
Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO). Earlier, my two
TOPS had found a drift in ozone measurements
by NASA’s ozone satellite, Nimbus 7. During
my first visit to MLO, the drift measured by the
two TOPS was affirmed by the world standard
ozone instrument (Dobson 83), which was being
calibrated at MLO (Figure
F
). This finding
became my first paper in Nature, the world’s
leading scientific journal.
The UofN talk also led to an assignment to
teach an annual hands-on science short course,
and that provided me with annual MLO calibration
opportunities for 17 years.
In 1993, TOPS received a Rolex Award. This
provided the money to hire my friend Scott
Hagerup to develop Microtops, a microprocessor-
controlled TOPS. When Solar Light acquired
rights to Microtops, they developed Microtops II,
hundreds of which are used today by scientists
around the world to measure the ozone layer,
water vapor, and haze.
In 2016, 24 years after Dobson 83 confirmed
TOPS had found a drift in NASA’s ozone satellite,
NOAA hired me to calibrate Dobson 83 during
a 64-day stay at MLO (Figure
G
). A comparison
The world standard ozone instrument, Dobson 83, during Forrest Mims’ first visit to MLO in 1992.
106 makezine.com
F
Gretchen Roth
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