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203 c h a p t e r t e n The Second Decade (1966–1975) T he Mauna Loa Observatory quietly entered its second decade staffed only by Howard Ellis, who was still officially listed as supervisory physicist, and Bernard Mendonca. Johnny Chin was taking care of the carbon dioxide measurements for Scripps with Ellis’ help. The budget was still minimal, but major changes were in the wind now that the Weather Bureau had become part of the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA) of the Department of Commerce. Overload at MLO (1966) The old MLO correspondence files reveal that scientists and supervisors on the mainland sometimes didn’t fully understand the difficulties Ellis faced in running a remote, high-altitude observatory with only two men. Their only office was on the mountain, and both vehicle and generator maintenance still posed major problems. There was little storage space for new equipment at MLO, and there were problems distributing electrical power to all the experiments. Late in March 1966, Ellis wrote Helmut Weickmann, director of the Atmospheric and Chemistry Laboratory at ESSA, to explain why some new equipment received in November had not yet been placed in operation. In a onepage letter typed on a plain sheet of stationery without a Weather Bureau letterhead, Ellis explained his predicament : My problems have been compounded since then and the equipment has not yet been unpacked. My thinking continues to be that it is better to conduct programs well than to attempt many programs, any of which may be questionable. . . . However, as I wrote to you last week, we have just about finished a major effort to solve our problems of space and electrical load distribution. Ellis was also overwhelmed by the carbon dioxide program that he managed prior to the breakdown of the analyzer in 1964 and the subsequent hiring of John Chin by Charles Keeling, and in the same letter he explained his concerns to Weickmann: Dr. Weickmann, I am very concerned about the Carbon Dioxide program for the next couple of months, until Lothar Ruhnke [Ellis’ successor as MLO director] can grasp with the problem. I think that I can handle it and that there will be no break in the data, but, perhaps since I have become so personally involved with Dr. Keeling— 204 H AWA I ‘ I ’ S M AU N A L O A O B S E RVAT O RY I feel that he has damaged my career, completely without basis—I am afraid that we might have an equipment breakdown that will not be anyone’s fault and that I will be blamed. It has been a real hard fight with the CO2 program. I feel very strongly about the importance of the work and I feel that I understand the equipment and program as well and in many of its operational aspects better than anyone at the present time. Because of this I have given several thousand hours of my own free time to keep this program going over the years. . . . There is nothing I can ask of you at the present time that will help except to mentally cross your fingers that the equipment will continue to work. Ellis would soon learn that he was right to be concerned about his relationship with Keeling. Meanwhile, John Chin was growing weary of the difficult schedule on the mountain. He still had to depend on Ellis or Mendonca for transportation to and from MLO. And he didn’t enjoy having to spend some nights alone on the mountain. The CO2 project [air sample lines] needed to be switched manually [each evening] so I still needed to stay overnight . I drove up to the Yamanouchi gas station on Kaumana Drive where I parked my car and waited for a ride from the MLO observers. It wasn’t until Scripps was able to automate their switching that I no longer had to spend lonely night[s] on MLO. (Chin 2001) In his letter to Weickmann, Ellis (1966) wrote that not having someone on the mountain every night “continues to be an unsolved problem.” He believed it was necessary for MLO to be manned overnight to take care of generator breakdowns and unexpected problems. Shortly before writing Weickmann, Ellis had learned that his days in charge of MLO were numbered. The new administrative lineup at ESSA was bringing change to the long neglected observatory, and lightning expert Lothar Ruhnke was being assigned to take over as director . Ellis closed...

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