Both Jakob and Salvo study the aerosols that act as surfaces for the water to condense on (called cloud condensation nuclei or CCN), allowing us to see how they contribute to cloud formation in Antarctica. The Southern Ocean is the cloudiest region in the world, but it also has unique lower clouds with mixed phases – both liquid and water droplets. Understanding the types of aerosols and particles that help form these clouds allows us to understand better the amount of sunlight reflected or absorbed by Earth’s surface.
Aside from the science, Jakob and Salvo both have a deep love of nature. They both enjoy hiking and exploring. In fact, they took me on an 11-mile hike at Bruny Island, Tasmania – before we got on the ship! Jakob says nature and looking at clouds from planes as a kid is what inspired him to be a scientist. Both he and Salvo agree that wanting to be a part of a solution for our changing climate was a big motivator for them to become researchers.
Jakob is originally from Bath, North Carolina and Salvo from Sicily, Italy, but they both currently work in Australia. Jakob is an aerosol scientist at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, and Salvatore is a PhD student at the University of Tasmania - Melbourne campus. Both mentioned that their paths to their current positions were not traditional. Jakob worked on a fishing boat in Alaska for a summer to pay for school and then moved to Denmark for a year before starting his PhD. He even conducted research in the Arctic at a Danish research base in northeast Greenland! He’s currently the only one from our team to have made it to both poles. How cool!
