Characterizing primary biological aerosol particles during TRACER
EMSL Project ID
60339
Abstract
Atmospheric organic aerosols represent a large fraction of the total aerosol in the atmosphere and can derive from primary sources emitted directly from natural or anthropogenic processes or be formed in the atmosphere via secondary processes. One poorly constrained contribution to organic aerosol is primary biological aerosol particle (PBAP) emissions from the terrestrial biosphere. Observations of PBAP are limited in both space and time, in part due to the difficulty in identifying chemical signatures of primary biological emissions. Further, PBAP can rupture in the atmosphere, creating smaller fragments that are challenging to identify with current aerosol instrumentation. We propose an integrated experimental and modeling study of biological particles using the multi-modal micro-spectroscopy, advanced mass spectrometry, and high-performance computing platforms available at EMSL. The aim of the proposed work is to investigate vertical gradient of biological particles and their fragments by analyzing samples from the tethered balloon system (TBS) during the ARM/ASR Tracking Aerosol Convection Interactions Experiment (TRACER) campaign. This will include using a suite of EMSL instrumentation to understand the particle composition, mixing state and morphology of particles to identify both PBAP and ruptured PBAP throughout the atmospheric column. Observations from this project will be implemented in a modeling framework to improve the representation of PBAP emission, fate, and cloud processing and understand the role of PBAP on regional aerosol-cloud interactions.
Project Details
Project type
FICUS Research
Start Date
2022-10-01
End Date
N/A
Status
Active
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator