In October 2008, Chris Bretherton lifted off from the coast of northern Chile in a C-130 turboprop plane. It was too dark to see the sandy hills of the Atacama Desert below, but the darkness suited Bretherton just fine. The researcher wasn’t going sightseeing. Seated directly behind the pilots, he kept his focus entirely on the sky.
The plane was stuffed with instruments, and its wings bristled with sensors and other devices. Bretherton’s immediate mission was to help the pilots collect information about the ice, water vapor, and air pressure around them. His longer-term goal was to use that data — as well as data he would collect over California, Hawai‘i, and Antarctica — to deal with one of the most challenging factors in climate science: clouds.
