An ACS Webinar: From Floods to Drought: How Aerosols Impact our Climate

Although this study does not seem to be intended as a geoengineering study, it touches on various concepts highly related to climate geoengineering, from SRM to ocean fertilization.

The Q&A touched on the very current topic of the ongoing California drought.

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Published on May 5, 2015

on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVHiWByxqC4

Climate change involves more than just carbon dioxide. Join Kimberly Prather from UC San Diego as she explains her research on how atmospheric aerosols play a role in affecting the composition of our atmosphere as well as regional and global climate. This ACS Webinar is a special broadcast in conjunction with Chemists Celebrate Earth Day 2015.

What You Will Learn:
- How different particle compositions influence cloud formation
- The particular combinations of chemical species that enhance reactivity and cloud forming potential
- How chemistry at the interface of a particle influence its reactivity

Upcoming Live ACS Webinars:
http://acs.org/acswebinars

Recordings of full length ACS Webinars are available as an exclusive benefit to ACS members. Live ACS Webinars are a free service to the public every Thursday at 2pm ET.

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Other weblinks:

Slides to this presentation (PDF):

http://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/events/green-chemistry/Slides/2015-04-23-climate-change-slides.pdf

Center for Aerosols Impacts on Climate and the Environment CAICE

http://caice.ucsd.edu/

Prather Research Group - UC San Diego

http://atofms.ucsd.edu/

CAICE youtube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiret2UN-fZfgQJGshob2tA

This webinar is based on the study:

Bringing the ocean into the laboratory to probe the chemical complexity of sea spray aerosol

Kimberly A. Prather et al

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 May 7; 110(19): 7550–7555.
Published online 2013 Apr 25. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1300262110

Link (Full article) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3651460/ 

Abstract:

The production, size, and chemical composition of sea spray aerosol (SSA) particles strongly depend on seawater chemistry, which is controlled by physical, chemical, and biological processes. Despite decades of studies in marine environments, a direct relationship has yet to be established between ocean biology and the physicochemical properties of SSA. The ability to establish such relationships is hindered by the fact that SSA measurements are typically dominated by overwhelming background aerosol concentrations even in remote marine environments. Herein, we describe a newly developed approach for reproducing the chemical complexity of SSA in a laboratory setting, comprising a unique ocean-atmosphere facility equipped with actual breaking waves. A mesocosm experiment was performed in natural seawater, using controlled phytoplankton and heterotrophic bacteria concentrations, which showed SSA size and chemical mixing state are acutely sensitive to the aerosol production mechanism, as well as to the type of biological species present. The largest reduction in the hygroscopicity of SSA occurred as heterotrophic bacteria concentrations increased, whereas phytoplankton and chlorophyll-a concentrations decreased, directly corresponding to a change in mixing state in the smallest (60–180 nm) size range. Using this newly developed approach to generate realistic SSA, systematic studies can now be performed to advance our fundamental understanding of the impact of ocean biology on SSA chemical mixing state, heterogeneous reactivity, and the resulting climate-relevant properties.

Keywords: clouds, marine aerosols, biologically active, cloud condensation nuclei, ice nucleation