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Overview of the Manitou Experimental Forest Observatory: Site description and selected science results from 2008-2013
Citation:
Ortega, J., A. Turnipseed, J. Smith, A. Guenther, T. Karl, D. Day, D. Gochis, J. Huffman, A. Prenni, E. Levin, S. Kreidenweis, P. Demott, Y. Tobo, E. Patton, A. Hodzic, Y. Cui, P. Harley, R. Hornbrook, E. Apel, R. Monson, A. Eller, J. Greenberg, M. Barth, P. Campuzano-Jost, B. Palm, J. Jimenez, A. Aiken, M. Dubey, Chris Geron, J. Offenberg, M. Ryan, P. Fornwalt, S. Pryor, F. Keutsch, J. DiGangi, A. Chan, A. Goldstein, G. Wolfe, S. Kim, L. Kaser, R. Schnitzhofer, A. Hansel, C. Cantrell, AND R. Mauldin. Overview of the Manitou Experimental Forest Observatory: Site description and selected science results from 2008-2013. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions. Copernicus Gesellschaft mbH, Gottingen, Germany, 14(12):6345-6367, (2014).
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory’s (NERL’s) Human Exposure and Atmospheric Sciences Division (HEASD) conducts research in support of EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. HEASD’s research program supports Goal 1 (Clean Air) and Goal 4 (Healthy People) of EPA’s strategic plan. More specifically, our division conducts research to characterize the movement of pollutants from the source to contact with humans. Our multidisciplinary research program produces Methods, Measurements, and Models to identify relationships between and characterize processes that link source emissions, environmental concentrations, human exposures, and target-tissue dose. The impact of these tools is improved regulatory programs and policies for EPA.
Description:
The Bio-hydro-atmosphere interactions of Energy, Aerosols, Carbon, H2O, Organics & Nitrogen (BEACHON) project seeks to understand the feedbacks and inter-relationships between hydrology, biogenic emissions, carbon assimilation, aerosol properties, clouds and associated feedbacks within water-limited ecosystems. The Manitou Experimental Forest Observatory (MEFO) was established in 2008 by the National Center for Atmospheric Research to address many of the BEACHON research objectives, and it now provides a fixed field site with significant infrastructure. MEFO is a mountainous, semi-arid ponderosa pine-dominated forest site that is normally dominated by clean continental air, but is periodically influenced by anthropogenic sources from Colorado Front Range cities. This article summarizes the past and ongoing research activities at the site, and highlights some of the significant findings that have resulted from these measurements. These activities include • soil property measurements, • hydrological studies, • measurements of high-frequency turbulence parameters, • eddy covariance flux measurements of water, energy, aerosols and carbon dioxide through the canopy, • determination of biogenic and anthropogenic volatile organic compound emissions and their influence on regional atmospheric chemistry, • aerosol number and mass distributions, • chemical speciation of aerosol particles, • characterization of ice and cloud condensation nuclei, • trace gas measurements, and • model simulations using coupled chemistry and meteorology. In addition to various long-term continuous measurement, three focused measurement campaigns have occurred since the site was established, and two of these are the subjects of this special issue: BEACHON-ROCS (Rocky Mountain Organic Carbon Study; 2010) and BEACHON-RoMBAS (Rocky Mountain Biogenic Aerosol Study; 2011).
URLs/Downloads:
FINAL FINAL MEFO_ACP685_JORTEGA_APRIL2014_.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 318.518 KB, about PDF)FINAL FINAL -SUPPLEMENT.PDF (PDF, NA pp, 447.217 KB, about PDF)
Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics
