New center advances study of aerosols
By Jane Palmer
The new CIRES Center for Atmospheric Chemistry on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus will enable researchers to investigate another important issue pertaining to aerosols: their impact on the environment. “We know this is something important,” said CIRES Fellow Jose-Luis Jimenez, interim director of the new facility. “The tools in this new lab will allow us to study these processes in greater detail.”
While organic aerosols are linked to health issues, they can also have an impact on climate. The tiny particles scatter or reflect the sun’s incoming rays and have a cooling influence on
the Earth’s surface. While scientists have built models to simulate this cooling influence, the differences between model results and measurements make it difficult to trust the predictions, Jimenez said.
“Resolving this uncertainty is critical to accurate predictions of future climate,” Jimenez said. “We want to try to understand the sources and impacts of organic aerosols at the level of detail that allows us to confidently predict their amounts and effects 100 years from now.”
The new center is based on a collaboration between CIRES and the Department of Chemistry and
Biochemistry, and two new faculty hires are planned. It will house two hires are planned. It will house two 25m3 chambers—large Teflon bags that will act as models of the atmosphere. Scientists will be able to place different chemical mixtures into the bags, shine light of different intensities onto the chambers and observe what takes place with a suite of advanced instrumentation, Jimenez said.
“There are very few similar facilities worldwide at that scale,” Jimenez said. “The new CIRES lab will likely become one of the top three in the U.S.”
