Dr. Ye Tao recently traveled to Evora, Portugal, to attend the annual meeting of "PROfiling the atmospheric Boundary layer at European scale (PROBE)", a European collaboration funded by the European Collaboration in Science and Technology (COST) involving scientists and meteorologists from national weather observatories of almost all 30 member countries.  At the meeting, Dr. Tao gave a well-received presentation entitled "Surface-based Radiation Management: Can global mitigation emerge out of local adaptation?"

It was encouraging to make significant contact with instrumentationalists who are developing directionally resolved spectrometers and LIDARS that can measure movements in and composition of the lowest part of the atmosphere where we live, which is exactly where mirrors are expected to have the largest cooling and circulation impacts. One conferee from northern Europe with expertise in the Arctic gave Dr. Tao reason to hope for the possibility of using solar reflectors in the Arctic, where temperatures are rising fast. Other conferees from Portugal and Cyprus were optimistic about the local soil moisture benefits of mirror arrays in drier climates.

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