The Brazilian bottled mineral water market is valued at a sizeable multi-billion liters produced annually. This large bottled water production associated with a surge in its seasonal demand presents a tempting opportunity for counterfeits to make their way into the Brazilian marketplace.  In Prof. José Marcus Godoy’s study, the use of stable isotope analysis (d18O & dD) was proven to be a valuable tool in tracing the origin of the bottled water to at least the state level within the vast territory of Brazil.

Ricardo Sánchez-Murillo of the National University of Costa Rica foresees water challenges affecting even the wettest regions of the globe, such as Central America. Applying his experience gained from the University of Idaho-Moscow, he’s intent on finding solutions by studying Costa Rica’s little understood water systems.

Housed in the first floor of the physics building of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland (UMCS-Lublin) is a lab that is responsible for some very impressive technical innovations to enable isotope analysis of a variety of light and heavy elements over the years.

I had the opportunity to speak with one of our customers, Dr. Joe Galewsky of the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque, on his long term water vapor isotope monitoring project in Chile. The location offers a unique opportunity to understand how climate change is affecting the atmospheric water vapor cycle. Here’s a transcript of that conversation...

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — My name is Rebecca Vincent. I attend Gunn High School and am interning at Picarro for the summer. I had the opportunity to visit the NASA Ames Research Center with several colleagues, Yoonah Danskin, Melissa Palmer, and Gloria Jacobson to watch the launch of the Alpha Jet on this-year’s GOSAT calibration mission.

BOULDER, CO — According to their website, the Global Monitoring Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research Laboratory (NOAA/ESRL/GMD) “conducts sustained observations and research related to source and sink strengths, trends, and global distributions of atmospheric constituents that are capable of forcing change in the climate of Earth through modification of the atmospheric radiative environment, those that may cause depletion of the global ozone layer, and those that affect baseline air quality."

FRANCE / RUSSIA — With a large percentage of its area covered by forest (800×106 hectares) and huge stocks of carbon (roughly 320 gigatons), Siberia is a significant player in the global carbon budget. Yet, there are many unknowns when it comes to the region’s biogeochemistry and the distribution and emissions of compounds that play a role in tropospheric chemistry and climate change.

BEIJING, CHINA — I had the opportunity to speak with one of our customers, Dr. Zhonghe Pang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, on using water isotopes to understand and mitigate climate change including: land use and ground water recharge, modeling geothermal reservoirs, and testing the CO2 storage capacity of deep saline aquifers.

Dr. Ira Leifer, Paige Farrell and Dan Culling recently completed a methane measurement transect of the southern US while en-route to deliver their Picarro flux analyzer to a waiting ship in Louisiana.

Few scientific meetings match the level of organization and attendee engagement as does this Global Monitoring Annual Conference (GMAC).  This past May, GMD celebrated its 40th year of these meetings in Boulder, CO.  One thing many people may not know about this year’s meeting is that it was funded entirely by private donations, which were primarily from individuals.  In the following article, Picarro’s greenhouse gas product manager, Gloria Jacobson, checks in with GMD director, Jim Butler, after the event.

Our customers often measure some unusual things with our instruments. Liquids, gases and solids of all types, from deep sea vent water to bat breath to moth wings. We've collected a list of the weirdest… and we’ve added a few of our own as well as a few that we just made up. See if you can spot the fake analyses!

TOKYO, JAPAN — I'm interested in composition, transformation, and transport in the troposphere, lower part of the Earth's atmosphere. This spans a wide range of areas including air quality in Asia, monitoring of reactive trace gases and aerosols, standardization of trace gases for atmospheric chemistry, and the intercation of climate change with air quality, among other topics.

Our lab observes and models micrometeorological, ecological, and biogeochemical interactions of the surface with the atmosphere at regional to global scales, with a focus on anthropogenic influences to these interactions.

FRANCE — In June, 2010 the LSCE installed a Picarro isotopic water Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy system that measures the isotopic composition of water vapor continuously  in Niamey (Niger) on the campus of the Institute of Radioisotopes (IRI). This facility collects rainwater and makes other isotope measurements. The Picarro instrument is being used for the continuous measurement of the isotopic composition of water vapor throughout the monsoon season. This data should help us better understand and quantify the physical processes that occur within convective systems (re-evaporation

Water loss is closely coupled to carbon gain by plants and ecosystems. I study the physiological mechanisms and processes by which plants and ecosystems regulate water loss and carbon gain, and how such processes may be altered under global environmental change.

Our team led by Professor Sally Benson is measuring ambient carbon dioxide concentrations and isotopic carbon measurements from carbon dioxide at a site near Green River, Utah where there is leakage of CO2 along faults above a natural subsurface CO2 reservoir.  The site presented an opportunity to test out methods for monitoring for CO2 leakage at the surface over the large areas that will be necessary for industrial CO2 sequestration projects.

JENA, GERMANY — I lead the airborne measurement group at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. My main interest is to make atmospheric measurements of trace gases relevant for our earth's climate, and to utilize these data in combination with transport models to learn about sources/sinks of those gases, most prominently of CO2. On the experimental side this involves high accuracy measurement of trace gases from airborne platforms, but also development and optimization of such instrumentation...

Calera’s focus is capturing CO2 from stationary emitters- including power plants and cement plants- and permanently converting it to mineral forms.

David Valentine, Associate Professor of Earth Sciences

SANTA BARBARA, CA — My lab team at UCSB studies the interactions among microbes, and between microbes and the Earth system. Our projects probe the global methane and hydrogen cycles, microbial physiology, and hydrocarbon biogeochemistry, with field sites from the Arctic to southern Chile.  Much of our work is carried out in the natural lab just offshore from campus: the Coal Oil Point seep field, which are among the world’s most spectacular marine hydrocarbon seeps.

We are deploying the world’s largest privately owned greenhouse gas (GHG) measurement network. This network will include 50 Picarro G2301 instruments to measure carbon dioxide and methane in the U.S., with 50 more slated for deployment outside U.S. borders. We are partnering with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for technical and scientific assistance and construction of the critical data models required to create detailed inversion maps of regional emissions.This is the first private-sector effort to measure critical greenhouse gases and provide more comprehensive data to

GRAZ, AUSTRIA — We used the Picarro isotopic water analyzer in a project financed by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology. High in the Austrian Alps our team (from the Joanneum Research Institute of Water Resources Management) installed a Picarro stable isotope analyzer at one of the largest karst springs in the country.

When I joined Picarro at the start of September in 2009, Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy technology for isotope analysis had only just been created. In short order CRDS was validated by researchers whose laboratories specialized in using isotope ratio mass spectrometers (IRMS), devices which were previously considered the state of the art.

In a week when heat waves are sweeping the country, a post about green roofs seems appropriate. Environmentalists have long espoused putting plants on top of buildings as a way to improve air quality in cities and reduce the urban island heat effect. Sounds nice, but what are the real impacts of green roofs? Will they reduce runoff water into storm drains? Will they clean the runoff water? Will they cool the city? And will green roofs absorb or emit methane and other greenhouse gases.

As I write this, I’m sitting on a ski-equipped LC-130 Hercules cargo plane from the New York Air National Guard’s 109th Airlift Wing, flying over Greenland, having just taken off from the NEEM camp at 77°N latitude where the sun is up 24 hours a day.

I've got two simple yet evocative phrases  for you. Wing pods. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Excited? We are. During late June, a team of top scientists from the NASA Ames Research Center deployed three Picarro analyzers as part of the The Railroad Valley Vicarious Calibration Campaign, a collaboration between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif. One of the analyzers was deployed in a wing pod of an Alpha jet which flew up to altitudes of 25,000 feet. Another was deployed in the nose cone of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

The expedition also has what we reckon must be one of the most well-travelled Picarro analyzer’s.  Dr. Antonio Delgado and his team from CSIC, Granada, received their isotopic CO2 analyzer nearly two years ago.  In this time it’s been measuring up in the snowy Sierra Nevada, as well as well as on the Spanish plain.

Climate scientists can be divided into two large interactive groups: Experimentalists, who go out into the world and collect climate data (e.g., levels of carbon dioxide, methane concentration, seasonal temperature, snowfall rates, etc.); and Modelers, those who build computer simulations based on that data (called “climate models” by those in the know) to estimate how climate variables affect one another (e.g., does increasing CO2 increase temperature enough to melt polar ice caps that will raise sea levels so high that Miami will be the next Atlantis?).

The greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) is a product of human activities that use carbon-based fuels, such as home heating, cars, and manufacturing plants, to name a few. But CO2 also has many natural sources, such as soil, volcanoes and all living things that breathe. So a necessary question that should be asked by climate and citizen scientists alike is, “How do you know increases in CO2 are from human activity?”

The Shepson group is involved in fundamental studies of the chemistry of the Earth’s atmosphere, and specifically, photochemistry that occurs in the lowest 10-15 km, i.e. the troposphere.

QUEBEC, CANADA — We operate aluminum smelters. Our application for Picarro hydrogen fluoride (HF) analyzers is in our ambient air monitoring stations, monitoring ambient air quality at fenceline and in local communities for the protection of the environment and community health.

One of the most interesting things we product managers get to do at Picarro is spend time in the field with customers learning how they use our analyzers.  This way, we get to experience firsthand the challenges of doing science outdoors in remote locations - challenges like dealing with unpleasant wildlife (for example). Studying fluxes of greenhouse gases in the environment is definitely one of the areas where the full outdoor research experience is mandatory.

DAUPHIN ISLAND, ALABAMA — My research program is broadly aimed at processes that influence the production and distribution of coastal marine plankton. The principal area of research that I am involved with is the ecology and biology of gelatinous zooplankton. I have recnetly been researching the impact of the Deep Water Horizon oil spill on plankton in the Gulf of Mexico.

We blogged previously about carbon sequestration and its a topic we watch closely. You may have read that earlier this week Saskatchewan approved plans for a commercial-scale carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project.

This is a picture from one of our customers / collaborators, John Stix and fellow intrepid researchers from the Earth and Planetary Sciences Deparment at McGill University in Canada. We believe this is the first time anyone has driven a live, running anallyzer up and down a smoking volcano to capture gas concentration samples.

A fascinating question scientists have long entertained is why do most bats primarily choose to fly at night? And why have they evolved so heavily towards nocturnal activity? The strongest hypothesis about this related to predator avoidance. But no one knew exactly why. 

LLEIDA, SPAIN — Our lab performs isotopic water analysis with a Picarro L2120-i analyzer. Our principal application using the Picarro analyzer is the isotopic analysis of xylem water to identify variations in water source during its uptake from the soil. This is based on the fact that there is an evaporation gradient in the soil and as a result, water obtained from distinct depths has a distinct isotopic signal. We are using this principle in distinct contexts to resolve various questions...

Flood-irrigated agricultural soils can be a significant source of the greenhouse gases (GHG) carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) (Linquist et al. 2011, Oertel et al. 2016). As these ecosystems are typically characterized by high spatial and temporal heterogeneity, continuous trace gas measurements are needed to better detect patterns and quantify net ecosystem fluxes.

This application note outlines the configuration and use of the Picarro G2201-i dual carbon (CO2 & CH4) isotope analyzer to differentiate between C3 and C4 respiration sources at a transitional agricultural experiment in southern Sweden.

WS-CRDS provides simple δ13C measurements of DIC, enabling the source type of these compounds to be determined.

Capturing and processing soil GHG fluxes using the LI-8100A—Picarro

A Portable Low Power Cavity Ring-Down Analyzer and Automated Soil Flux Chamber Measuring Wetland GHG Emissions

A Portable Low Power Cavity Ring-Down Analyzer and Automated Soil Flux Chamber Measuring Wetland GHG Emissions

This guide helps users find manuals and product information and correctly start up and shut down their analyzer before shipping it back to Picarro. 

https://www.astm.org/d8407-21.html

1. Scope

1.1 This guide describes analytical methods for determining formaldehyde concentrations in air.

1.2 The guide is primarily focused on formaldehyde measurement technologies applicable to indoor (including in vehicle and workplace) air and associated environments (that is, chambers or bags, or both, used for formaldehyde emission testing). The described technologies may be applicable to other environments (ambient outdoor).

This document serves as a general guide on how to approach and successfully calibrate a Picarro cavity ring-down spectrometer (CRDS). The steps described herein can be used on isotopic and/or concentration analyzers that measure CO2, CO, CH4, H2O, C2H2, C2H4, C2H6, CH2O, O2 and N2O. Additional analyzers may require special or extra steps to calibrate properly.

This is the yearly maintenance kit quick start guide for Picarro's G4xxx analyzers.

This is the yearly maintenance kit quick start guide for Picarro's GHG, L2xxx, and EtO analyzers.

This is yearly maintenance kit quick start guide for Picarro's HAPs G2xxx analyzers.

 

We provide natural gas operators around the globe with the most effective and proven path to net zero methane emissions, and actionable data through direct methane measurements.

The Fall 2024 Picarro Gas Conference, held in Amsterdam this year, brought together 56 leaders from 31 companies across Europe for three days of insightful discussions, hands-on workshops, and future-focused presentations. The event provided a platform for natural gas operators to explore the latest advancements in methane emissions management and compliance with the new EU Methane Regulation.

At Picarro, innovation is at the heart of everything we do, and today, we’re thrilled to introduce something we believe will truly transform the way natural gas operators work—the Picarro Handheld. This new device isn’t just another tool in the toolkit; it’s the next step in revolutionizing leak detection and management, and we couldn’t be more excited to share it with the world.

Why This Handheld Matters