Barbados site ramps up efforts to measure dust, aerosols

Joseph Prospero scaled the 55-foot tower at Ragged Point so many times during his decades-long stint overseeing a specialized University of Miami laboratory on the east coast of Barbados that he lost count. Two hundred. Perhaps three hundred-he isn't quite sure. But what the emeritus professor of atmospheric sciences does know is that each ascent was essential. Sometimes, it was to change one of the filters that captured samples of Saharan dust that traveled the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Other times it was to install new equipment or to repair gadgetry that had malfunctioned. Now, that tower-the signature attribute of the University of Miami's Barbados Atmospheric Chemistry Observatory (BACO) -will soon be disassembled, making way for a new one.