COMBINING MODELING AND REMOTE SENSING TO CHARACTERIZE MARINE ORGANIC AEROSOLS
Brett Gantt, EPA Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards
July 31, 2015, 10:30 am, NASA Langley, Bldg 1250, Rm 116
Bio:
Brett is a native of Asheville, NC and attended UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State for undergraduate and graduate school. His graduate work involved quantifying the emissions and air quality-climate impact of biogenic gases and particles emitted from the ocean. He was a postdoc at NC State and the National Exposure Research Laboratory at the EPA before starting his current job at EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards this spring. His current work involves the analysis of surface PM2.5 concentrations and the impact on visibility in the U.S.
Abstract:
Knowledge of the emissions, physical characteristics, and chemical composition of marine organic aerosols is needed for the quantification of their effects on air quality and climate. Relatively little is known about this aerosol type because of the limited number of field measurements, underutilization of remote sensing, and lack of inclusion in most air quality and climate models. In this review, efforts to link marine ecosystems to the emission and physicochemical characteristics of marine organic aerosols are discussed in this context of regional air quality and global climate modeling. Despite successes in using remotely-sensed data to develop model-ready emission inventories, recent laboratory and field studies have suggested emission processes not currently implemented in any model framework. The use of novel remote sensing techniques developed in the North Atlantic Aerosols and Marine Ecosystems Study and other NASA efforts would likely improve the emission inventories and characterization of marine organic aerosols.