Collaborative Research: Atmospheric Nucleation of Complex Mixtures Emitted from Marine Planktonic Communities

This project is focused on investigating how the emissions from various marine planktonic communities lead to particle nucleation in the atmosphere and how these emissions might evolve with a changing environment. Particle nucleation provides a substantial fraction of the seed particles for forming marine clouds that reflect incoming solar radiation while simultaneously obscuring radiation-absorbing oceans. Since the formation and rate at which particles nucleate influence the brightness and lifetimes of clouds, quantifying marine nucleation rates is important for accurately predicting the role of clouds in climate change. The objectives of this project are to: (1) Verify that the Nucleation Potential Model can quantify the nucleation potential of laboratory-generated complex mixtures; (2) Measure the nucleation reactions, nucleation potentials, and emission profiles produced from tank-grown marine phytoplankton during various stages of growth; (3) Predict the seasonal and spatial variation in emission profiles, nucleation reactions, and nucleation potentials from natural marine planktonic communities collected from Gulf of Maine; and (4) Evaluate spring and late summer/fall marine emissions and atmospheric nucleation at the Gulf of Maine and compare with those observed in Objective 3. The ultimate impact of this research is to dramatically expand nucleation measurements in difficult-to-access regions worldwide and provide a computationally simple method for predicting nucleation rates in diverse environments and points in time. In the future, climate change may cause regions of the oceans that were not previously significant sources of aerosol particles to play more critical roles in determining Earth's radiative budget and climate. The PIs plan to work with two high school science teachers from underfunded neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, PA to develop a student-centered, atmospheric chemistry and climate curriculum that can be incorporated into a semester-long chemistry class. The final objective of the project is to incorporate the experimental design and data analysis of measured phytoplankton emissions into the atmospheric chemistry module implemented at two local high schools. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.