#dome c

The bright light being fired into the sky is the LIDAR experiment at this site. They are shooting the laser into the sky to study how it interacts with the lowermost layer of the atmosphere, known as the atmospheric boundary layer. As they send out pulses of light, some of the light reflects off layers in the atmosphere, some of it scatters to the side off of turbulence or particles in the atmosphere, and during the five minute laser pulses these properties can be measured. Dome C is flat, at high elevation, and about as isolated from air currents in the atmosphere as any place on Earth. Thus if air pollution arrives at this site, it is showing its abundance in the rest of the world. If this site heats up, the atmospheric boundary layer thickness will change in a measurable way, and this has been gradually seen over the last 15 years since this experiment began. Finally, this site is also subject to the ozone layer hole generated by human release of chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere over the last century. Thus, these laser pulses monitor the formation of that hole and hopefully, its healing at this site over time. -JBB Image credit: European Space Agency https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2020/08/Return_of_the_LIDAR Reference: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-12968-1_12