Biocomplexity and Air Quality

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Biocomplexity and Air Quality
Christine Wiedinmyer Project Scientist
I Atmospheric Chemistry Division/ The Institute
for Multidisciplinary Earth Studies
June 22, 2005
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Earths Improbable Atmosphere
Oxidizing Reducing Inert
Mars Venus Dead Earth Earth
O2 CO2 CH4 H2 N2 Ar
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Why is the chemical composition of the Martian
atmosphere different than Earth?
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What are biosphere-atmosphere interactions?
Radiation
CO2
H2O
Heat
Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC)
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Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions Volatile
Organic Compounds and Aerosols
Atmospheric Compounds Particles
Gases Particles
deposition
Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC)
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Why Do We Care?
Visibility Cloud characteristics Climate Air
quality
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The Blue Haze...
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radiation reflected
radiation reflected
Organic Aerosol
Boundary Layer Moisture and Heating
radiation diffuse
radiation diffuse
radiation direct
Oxidation
H2O
Heat
CO2
Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds
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IPCC Radiative Forcing Potentials
VOC
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Regional Air Quality Ozone (O3)

• Criteria Pollutant
• Concentrations are regulated by the Clean Air Act
• National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS)
• O3 lt 120 ppbv (1-hour average)
• O3 lt 80 ppbv (8-hour average)
• Why is it regulated?
• unhealthy to breath
• harmful to materials
• destroys plants (agriculture)

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Regional Air Quality Ozone (O3)

• Ozone produced through atmospheric chemical
  reactions
• Nitrogen Oxides (NOx)
• VOC
• sunlight

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How do we control air pollution?

• O3 is created in the atmosphere
• not directly emitted
• not linear!
• Need to understand the emissions and chemistry to
  know what to control...
• Biogenic emissions can be an important component
  of the VOCs in certain areas...
• Need to measure and understand
• Biogenic VOC emissions!!

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Above-Canopy Towers for Measuring Ecosystem
Exchange
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NCAR tethered blimp sampling system
VOC sampler
Humidity, Temper., Winds
Particles, O3, CO, CO2
VOC sampler
VOC sampler
Boundary Layer
VOC sampler
30 min integrated sample between ascent and
descent
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Aircraft Studies
Brazil, CAPOS 2004
Thomas Karl et al.
Biomass Burning / Biogenic Emission Study
Beinderante, INPE
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What do we do with the measurements?

• Inputs to chemistry and climate models
• Simulate atmospheric processes
• Earth System Modeling
• Goals
• better understand current and past conditions
• try to predict future conditions

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Regional Chemical Modeling
Jack Chen Washington State Univ.
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Some things to think about ...

• How will climate change impact BVOC emissions?
• And how will the emissions impact climate change?
  
• How are we changing biosphere-atmosphere
  exchanges by
• urbanization
• agriculture
• replanting forests
• What are other feedbacks between the biosphere
  and the atmosphere?
• aerosols
• carbon exchange
• H2O

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Biogenic VOC and the Earth System
Air pollutants
Biosphere Health (particles, Ozone, PAN)
Climate/ Radiative forcing
Biogeochemical cycle (C, N, S, etc.)
Physical Environment
Chemical Environment
Radiative balance



O3, NO2, CH4, RONO2, OH, CO2, particles
Biogenic VOC Emissions
Trace gas deposition
Ambient temperature, light
Human Activities



Biosphere
Human Perturbations
Land use change
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Work Not Done Alone!!
Alex Guenther, Peter Harley, Thomas Karl, Jim
Greenberg, Andrew Turnipseed, Ulzi Vanchindorj
(NCAR) Brian Lamb and Jack Chen (WSU) Jana
Milford and Tan Sakulyanontvittaya (CU-Boulder)
And MANY More!!
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What is Biocomplexity?

• Biocomplexity of the environment includes
  activities designed to foster research and
  education on the complex inter-dependencies among
  the elements of specific environmental systems
  and interactions of different types of systems.
• All kinds of organisms -from microbes to
  humans-fall within the BE framework, as do
  environments that range from frozen polar regions
  and volcanic vents to temperate forests and
  agricultural lands as well as the neighborhoods
  and industries of urban centers. The key
  connector of BE activities is complexity -the
  idea that research on the individual components
  of environmental systems provides only limited
  information about the behavior of the systems
  themselves.

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Above-Canopy Towers for Measuring Ecosystem
Exchange
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Chemical Composition of the Atmosphere
Transport and Transformation Anthropogenic
forcing Direct increased atmospheric
burden Indirect climate change
Emission Anthropogenic forcing Direct
Urbanization, industrialization, most
fires Indirect land-use and climate change
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• Biocomplexity in Linked Bioecological-Human
  Systems Agent-Based Models of Land-Use Decisions
  and Emergent Land Use Patterns in Forested
  Regions of the American Midwest and the Brazilian
  Amazon
• Biocomplexity is the study of the emergence of
  self-organized, complex behaviors from the
  interaction of many simple agents. Such emergent
  complexity is a hallmark of life, from the
  organization of molecules into cellular
  machinery, through the organization of cells into
  tissues, to the organization of individuals into
  communities. The other key element of
  biocomplexity is the unavoidable presence of
  multiple scales. Often, agents organize into much
  larger structures those structures organize into
  much larger structures, etc.. A classic example
  is the primary, secondary, tertiary, and
  quaternary folding of DNA into chromosomes that
  allows a strand of a length of several
  centimeters to fold, without tangling or losing
  function, into a chromosome about one micron
  long. Biocomplexity is a methodology and
  philosophy as well as a field of study. It
  focuses on networks of interactions and the
  general rules governing such networks.