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SENSITIVITY OF ORGANIC AEROSOL CONCENTRATIONS AND FORCING TO ANTHROPOGENIC EMISSIONS
Impact/Purpose:
Despite its importance for human health and climate change organic aerosol (OA) remains one of the least understood aspects of atmospheric chemistry. We propose to continue the development of an innovative new framework for the description of OA in chemical transport and climate models that will be able to overcome the challenges posed by the chemical complexity of OA while capturing its essential features.
The objectives of the proposed project are: (i) The experimental investigation of the mixing of biogenic and anthropogenic components. (ii) The quantification of the effects of NOx and SO2 on the formation of biogenic SOA. (iii) The measurement of the OA formed per unit of biogenic and anthropogenic SOA precursor added to typical air masses. (iv) The development of parameterizations of the above processes in the OA volatility-oxygen content coordinate system. (v) The evaluation of this new module in the regional chemical transport model PMCAMx against some of the best available (or soon to be available) datasets (SOAS and SENEX-2013 in the US and EUCAARI and PEGASOS in Europe). (vi) The use of PMCAMx to quantify the response of the biogenic OA and its climatic effects (direct effect and also cloud condensation nuclei concentrations) in the Eastern US for different scenarios of anthropogenic emission changes.
Description:
The resulting OA module that could be used in different CTMs together with the insights about the sensitivity of the biogenic (but also anthropogenic) SOA to changes in emissions of anthropogenic pollutants will be the major outcomes of the proposed study.