Biocomplexity and Air Quality

Slide1 : Biocomplexity and Air Quality Christine Wiedinmyer Project Scientist I Atmospheric Chemistry Division/ The Institute for Multidisciplinary Earth Studies June 22, 2005

Slide2 :

Slide3 : Earth’s Improbable Atmosphere Oxidizing Reducing Inert Mars Venus Dead Earth Earth O2 CO2 CH4 H2 N2 Ar

Slide4 : Why is the chemical composition of the Martian atmosphere different than Earth?

Slide5 : H2O Heat Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) What are biosphere-atmosphere interactions? Radiation CO2

Slide6 : Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions: Volatile Organic Compounds and Aerosols Atmospheric Compounds & Particles deposition Gases & Particles

Slide7 : Why Do We Care? Visibility Cloud characteristics Climate Air quality

Slide8 : The Blue Haze...

Slide9 :

Slide10 : H2O Heat Boundary Layer Moisture and Heating Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds Oxidation Organic Aerosol radiation reflected radiation reflected radiation direct radiation diffuse radiation diffuse CO2

Slide11 : IPCC: Radiative Forcing Potentials VOC

Slide12 : Regional Air Quality: Ozone (O3) Criteria Pollutant Concentrations are regulated by the Clean Air Act National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) O3 < 120 ppbv (1-hour average) O3 < 80 ppbv (8-hour average) Why is it regulated? unhealthy to breath harmful to materials destroys plants (agriculture)

Slide13 : Regional Air Quality: Ozone (O3) Ozone produced through atmospheric chemical reactions: Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) VOC sunlight

Slide14 : 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!!

Slide15 :

Slide16 : Above-Canopy Towers for Measuring Ecosystem Exchange

Slide17 : Boundary Layer Particles, O3, CO, CO2 Humidity, Temper., Winds VOC sampler VOC sampler VOC sampler VOC sampler 30 min integrated sample between ascent and descent NCAR tethered blimp sampling system

Slide18 :

Slide19 : Aircraft Studies Brazil, CAPOS 2004 Biomass Burning / Biogenic Emission Study Beinderante, INPE Thomas Karl et al.

Slide20 : 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

Regional Chemical Modeling : Regional Chemical Modeling Jack Chen Washington State Univ.

Slide22 : 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

Slide23 : Chemical Environment Physical Environment Human Activities Air pollutants Land use change Radiative balance Biogenic VOC Emissions Trace gas deposition Ambient temperature, light Human Perturbations Biogenic VOC and the Earth System Biosphere Climate/ Radiative forcing Biosphere Health (particles, Ozone, PAN) Biogeochemical cycle (C, N, S, etc.) O3, NO2, CH4, RONO2, OH, CO2, particles

Slide24 : 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!!

What is Biocomplexity? : 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.

Slide26 :

Slide27 : Above-Canopy Towers for Measuring Ecosystem Exchange

Slide28 : Chemical Composition of the Atmosphere Emission Anthropogenic forcing Direct: Urbanization, industrialization, most fires Indirect: land-use and climate change Transport and Transformation Anthropogenic forcing Direct: increased atmospheric burden Indirect: climate change

Slide29 : 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.