I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to write that I am safe, well and able to keep doing my work during this COVID-19 pandemic. I realize that is not the case for everyone, and share my deepest sympathies with those of you experience illness, job loss or insecurity, caring for others, juggling childcare and working from home, or loss of loved ones.
At the The University of Colorado, Boulder and NOAA’s Chemical Sciences Laboratory, where I jointly work – we transitioned to working from home mid-March. Initially, the field-work we had planned for this summer from Japan, the Asian Summer Monsoon Chemical Climate Impacts Project, had not been cancelled, and so, right up to the mandatory work-from-home I was packing up my lab and preparing for early shipping to Japan to leave time for logistical difficulties from the COVID-19 crisis. Once it became apparent that no field work would be possible this summer, the mission was postponed by a year, and I shifted out of the lab and onto data analysis, that can be done from anywhere with just my laptop.
I think it is important that I do not paint a picture here of work continuing at pre-pandemic-productivity. That would be both dishonest and unkind. I do not believe we can expect, of ourselves and others, to be able to work at full capacity in times like these. Many people are having to juggle caring for children and relatives with working from home, all of us are dealing with shock, loss, sadness etc. as we come to grips with the new reality we face, many of us deal with worry over loved ones who are sick, isolation and so many other things specific to each person. I had personal disruptions to cope with due to visa issues made difficult by the current situation. It is all ok now, but as I was going through it, I found a guest post by Aisha Ahmad, “Adapting to Disaster” on the wonderful blog The Professor Is In to be incredibly helpful. It’s part of a series of helpful posts for those in research and academia with guidance on facing some of the new challenges posed by the current situation.
Now that my personal situation is secure and safe, I have been working on two things:
- Analyzing data from previous missions
- Looking to improve my own understanding of aerosols and virus transmission
The ATom mission, where flew around the world once in each of the four seasons surveying the remote atmosphere, produced so much interesting data that I fully expect to still be learning from it over the course of many years. Right now I’m diving in to look at the contrasts between the more polluted regions we flew through and the more pristine regions, and how the aerosol properties differ between the two.
My experience and expertise are in atmospheric aerosols and their effect on climate. However, as evidence mounts that aerosols may be important for the transmission of viruses like COVID-19, I feel a responsibility to educate myself on this as my understanding of aerosol particles, and even just the training I have as a scientists on how to read scientific literature and assess the reliability of different sources of information, at least mean I may be able to help those around me (around me in the virtual sense of course) to better understand the situation in which we find ourselves and make decisions that will help to keep communities safe.