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- Strategic Goals: Science, Facilities & Technology
- 1. Exploring atmospheric, Earth system, and solar processes, variability, and change
- 2. Investigating the interaction of the atmosphere, the broader Earth system, and human society
- 3. Improving prediction of weather, climate, and other atmospheric phenomena
- 4. Developing community models
- 5. Enabling innovative field experiments and measurement campaigns
- 6. Developing new instrumentation
- Research Catalog
Luciana Rizzo
General Information
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ACD - TIIMES
Scientist
BEACHON
Contact Information:
PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000
Home Page
Research Focus FY08:
Figure 1: Biosphere-atmosphere interactions: aerosols emitted through the metabolism of the forest interact with solar radiation, which in turn affects photosynthesis, photochemistry and nutrient cycling - High resolution figure
Secondary Organic Aerosol Formation in the Amazon Rainforest
The term 'aerosol' is defined as a suspension of solid or liquid particles in a gas. In remote regions such as the Amazon rainforest, most of the atmospheric aerosols arise from biogenic sources, directly emitted as pollen, bacteria, leaf and insect fragments, and secondarily emitted as a result of gas-to-particle conversion. Once released in the atmosphere, these micrometric particles interact with solar radiation by absorption and scattering of light, and indirectly through the formation of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) (Fig.1). The radiation balance at the surface is linked with photosynthesis and biomass carbon assimilation. Dry and wet deposition processes remove aerosols from the atmosphere, playing a role on the forest nutrient cycling. Therefore, the biosphere and the atmosphere are closely related, and the biogenic aerosols are an integrant part of the ecosystem dynamics...more