Del Genio studied more than 3, 000 individual cloud "snapshots" collected between 1994 and 1997 at the Department of Energy's AtmosphericRadiation Measurement Southern Great Plains field station.
By so doing, the candidates have precipitated a firestorm of criticism from national and local anti-nuclear activists and Utah Democrats in a state which, while solidly conservative and pro-defense, has residents who claim to have been sickened by radiation from atmospheric nuclear testing upwind in Nevada decades ago.
Researchers using the car-sized mobile laboratory have identified transient whirlwinds, mapped winds in relation to slopes, tracked daily and seasonal changes in air pressure, and linked rhythmic changes in radiation to daily atmospheric changes.