Division/Committee: [PHYS] Division of Physical Chemistry

Sea spray aerosol particles (SSA), formed through wave breaking at the ocean surface, contribute to natural aerosol particle concentrations in remote regions of Earth’s atmosphere and alter the direct and indirect effects of aerosol particles on Earth’s radiation budget. The proposed symposium will focus on how physical chemistry plays a key role in understanding these global impacts. The symposium will be co-organized by researchers and leaders within the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Aerosol Impacts on Chemistry of the Environment. As one of seven NSF Centers for Chemical Innovation (CCI), CAICE tackles the grand challenge of elucidating how the chemical complexity of atmospheric aerosol particles impacts our atmosphere and climate. SSA has tremendous chemical variability depending on ocean chemistry, biology, and physical factors such as waves and wind. CAICE has established a unique ocean-atmosphere interaction facility that replicates natural sea spray aerosol in a controlled setting, allowing for detailed fundamental physical chemistry studies of aerosol reactions in both complex “top-down” and building the complexity “bottom-up” approaches. A hallmark of this research has been the tight coupling of theory and experiment. Outreach and educational activities have also played a key role in getting K-12 students and the public excited about environmental and physical chemistry. This symposium celebrates the exciting and fruitful 13 years as this chapter of the NSF CCI comes to a close.

Kimberly Prather

UC San Diego

Appearances