By Mike Van Meter
Bulletin Staff Writer
SISTERS -- Look at Timothy Crawford's rakish experimental airplane and you suspect he might be a spy. Look at the way he flies -- close enough to treetops that it looks like he'll hit them -- and you're positive he's a spy.
You're right, but in a way folks who watch James Bond movies and read Tom Clancy novels wouldn't expect.
Crawford, who is based in Oak Ridge, Tenn., but temporarily stationed in Central Oregon, gathers intelligence for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. In effect, he is a high-ranking weatherman.
His official title is branch manager for the Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division.
It doesn't quite ring the same as MI-6 or CIA, but it certainly involves detective work.
The tools of Crawford's trade are proof enough: three global positioning sensors, a wind gauge, a meter for solar energy and many other intelligence-gathering devices. Some of the equipment would have been considered "top secret" just a few years ago.
Information is piped via 45 data channels into a custom-built back-seat computer. Most of the readings are automatically updated 200 times a second as the plane skims 50 or so feet above the forest.
The flights are part of a $900,000 joint climate and forestry research project conducted by Oregon State University in conjunction with NOAA's Oak Ridge Laboratory.
Supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the three-year project is designed to track where carbon dioxide belched from the world's factories is going. Only about half of it is accounted for, making scientists' task a missing molecules investigation.
Many plane enthusiasts would envy Crawford's job. Rather than sit behind a computer screen, he flies his desk. But he flies it around North America, from the Alaskan tundra to arboreal forests of Canada to Florida.
Like movie spies, Crawford has the sort of job you have to write home about if you want family to know what you're doing and where you're at.
"Last year I was home about six months -- that's the rough part," Crawford said.
When he's not in the air, Crawford is stationed with eight other scientists in a condominium at Black Butte. His plane -- a large-scale Long EZ he built himself -- is stationed at the Sisters Airport.
Central Oregon's air, which cools to near freezing and warms to the 90s within the space of 24 hours, poses a special challenge that often leaves Crawford shaken -- but hopefully not stirred. "Here, it's real hot and bumpy," he said.
When Crawford built his third plane -- he's now working on his fifth -- he kept comfort in mind.
Twenty percent larger than a standard Long EZ -- a craft designed by endurance legend Dick Rutan for long-distance flight -- Crawford's plane has some elbow room. Combine that with special headgear that allows him to pipe in music while filtering out noise and life in the air has at least some of the comforts of home.
You'd expect nothing less for one of our nation's spies.
By Mike Van Meter
Bulletin Staff Writer
CAMP SHERMAN -- Stories about climate theories often focus on the intricacies of "models" scientists use to predict things like global warming and the massively complex supercomputers that help scientists make new predictions.
Research on the slopes above the Metolius River doesn't sound so complicated: Scientists are watching the forest breathe.
Here, from the middle of a ponderosa and lodgepole pine forest, rises a 150-foot tower bolted together from portable scaffolding, guy wires and duct tape. It doesn't look high-tech. But the heart of what a dozen scientists from Corvallis and Oak Ridge, Tenn., are doing is cutting-edge research. The building blocks discovered here will determine whether computerized models work, or fail under the pressure of real life.
"The really exciting bit about being here is that no one else is doing this," said Michael Unsworth, an Oregon State University researcher. "The basic aim is to truly understand how forests respond to weather and climate."
Unsworth is one of a dozen researchers looking into the mystery of what is happening to carbon dioxide rising from the world's factories and automobiles. Scientists know how much is belching forth, but they only know where half of it is going.
Carbon dioxide is a critical piece of climate predictions. Many suspect that a buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere is creating a "greenhouse effect" that traps heat from the sun inside the atmosphere. That would lead to global warming with serious consequences for crops, forests, wildlife and ultimately, the human race.
Two stories in the last two weeks reflect the attention paid the issue: One report said 1995 was the hottest year on record. The other noted that the United States has signed on to a world agreement to limit production of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.
Amid the trees of the Deschutes National Forest north of Black Butte, things begin to look more complex. Dozens of instruments on the scaffolding-and-duct-tape tower powered by 50 square feet of solar cells measure how much carbon dioxide is sucked up and how much water vapor is spewed out. In addition to instruments on the tower and on the ground, daily flights by a sensor-equipped airplane take a wider look at what's happening across the area.
"We're treating the atmosphere like a bathtub," said Dennis Baldocchi, a NOAA scientist. "The water vapor and carbon dioxide are like the water, and we're trying to figure out how fast it's draining out and how the hot and cold water faucets are being played with at the same time."
Already, scientists are surprised at how quickly the forest is consuming CO2 -- and wondering what the consequences of that will be. Will forests "heal" the atmosphere of CO2 buildup? Will the forest -- like a teen-ager who eats too much chocolate and pizza and not enough fruit and vegetables -- get sick from the process?
While atmospheric scientists like Baldocchi have their eyes on the sky, forest scientists like OSU's Beverly Law literally get into the dirt.
"They're catching one number, and I'm saying what is contributing to that number," Law said. Law taps measurements from the soil, stems (a classification that includes tree trunks) and foliage (leaves and needles) to see how the three contribute to taking up CO2 and giving off water vapor.
The scientists are collecting information in their own specialties, but to make sense of it all they have to understand each other's language. Housed together in a Black Butte Ranch condominium, they're stretched well beyond the narrow confines of their doctoral papers.
Timothy Crawford flies the plane used in the research. A NOAA scientist used to looking at the clouds, puts the challenge like this: "I've got to think like a tree."
Law said she finds the process invigorating.
"Crossing over to atmospheric science is really interesting," Law said. "I really enjoy these interdisciplinary projects -- looking at things differently."