The VOCALS field campaign is studying the ocean, atmosphere, clouds, and land in the Southeast Pacific region to better understand climate.
Windows to the Universe / Lisa Gardiner

What is VOCALS?

Sometimes scientists have to go far from home to find answers to their questions. Just like you, they have many questions, such as: What types of clouds form over the Pacific Ocean? What instruments should I use to learn more about clouds? Does the temperature of the oceans affect what clouds form in the atmosphere? Can mountains affect the wind? Can air pollution change clouds and weather? What controls Earth’s climate?

Scientists from many countries want to find answers to these questions. They are using the Southeast Pacific area as a huge outdoor laboratory during the VAMOS Ocean-Cloud-Atmosphere-Land Study Regional Experiment (VOCALS). VAMOS stands for Variability of the American Monsoon System. The Southeast Pacific area that will be studied is near the west coasts of Peru and Chile in South America.

You can learn more about climate of the Southeast Pacific with our Flash interactive.

With help from technicians and engineers, they will make many new measurements of the clouds, weather, and climate. This will be exciting, because their instruments will be located on satellites, airplanes, ships, and on land. Come back soon to learn what VOCALS scientists are doing, far away from their homes (unless their home is Chile!).

Last modified October 10, 2008 by Julia Genyuk.

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