Welcome!
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted to the
atmosphere from a wide variety of sources, both natural and
man-made. In the atmosphere, VOCs have lifetimes varying
from minutes to years. Sinks include chemical reactions
with OH, ozone and nitrate radicals, and deposition at the
Earth's surface either directly, or indirectly after uptake
by aerosols or cloud droplets. The chemical transformation
of VOCs in polluted air leads to the production of ozone, a
harmful gas when present in the air we breathe. In
addition, processed VOCs can condense onto aerosols and add
to their mass loading. Aerosols in themselves are harmful,
since they are small enough to penetrate deep into our
lungs. Also, aerosols play an important role in the Earth's
radiation balance, and thus the climate, either directly by
the scattering and absorption of radiation or indirectly by
acting as cloud-condensation nuclei.
Our group uses state-of-the-art instruments to measure VOCs
in the atmosphere. We do this mostly during large-scale
field missions, which also determine many of the other
atmospheric constituents. From the results we hope to
understand quantitatively the emissions, chemical
transformations and ultimate loss processes of VOCs, and
how these processes contribute to the formation of ozone
and aerosol in the atmosphere.
We also study how VOC emissions may change in a future
atmosphere: our sources of energy are rapidly changing and
will continue to change in the future atmosphere. As a
result, the emissions of VOCs will change as well as the
effects they have on ozone and aerosol formation. This
research is done in close connection with the CIRES
Energy & Environment
Initiative.
Our group is part of the Tropospheric Chemical Observations
group in the Chemical Sciences Division of the
NOAA Earth System Research
Laboratory. Our group consists of CIRES researchers and is housed in
the David Skaggs Research Center in
beautiful Boulder, Colorado.
The information contained on these pages describes our
group members, the field projects we are
involved with, the instruments we use and the
publications we have written
or co-authored. Hopefully, these pages are useful to
you as a visitor or colleague!
Our group research news can be found here.
Joost de Gouw