Research

Speaker: Dr. Sara Lance - Research Faculty at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, University at Albany SUNY

Clouds have a major impact on the transport, chemical processing, and removal of atmospheric pollutants. Predicting changes to the composition of the atmosphere thus requires understanding the processes by which clouds, gases, and aerosols interact. New measurements reported in this talk advance ongoing research activities at the Whiteface Mountain (WFM) summit research observatory in New York State, a research site with a continuous long-term record of cloud water measurements that, until recently, have focused on the chemical pollutants responsible for “acid rain” and sulfate aerosol. The new and ongoing measurement strategy at WFM includes chemical measurements of cloud droplet residuals and aerosols that are directly comparable to the cloud water measurements, with the goal of better revealing processes occurring within clouds that impact aerosol chemical composition. These observations apply greater focus on the organic component, which dominates the aerosol and cloud water composition in recent years and has been increasing in both relative and absolute abundance, by including measurements of total organic carbon and organic acids within aerosol, cloud droplet residuals and cloud water. Despite the complexity of organic compounds and the many challenges they present, as organics become an ever larger fraction of atmospheric pollutants, it is increasingly important to understand their sources, transformation and fate.