Air-Sea Exchange of Reactive Gases: Chemistry at Interfaces and Partitioning in Aqueous Droplets

Randall Chiu,
Volkamer group,
ANYL PhD thesis

"Many puzzles remain regarding the interaction of halogens with oxygenated volatile organic compounds (OVOC) in the marine boundary layer (MBL). Observations of the OVOC glyoxal (CHOCHO) over the remote Pacific Ocean are difficult to reconcile with its brief (2-4 hour) atmospheric lifetime and high water solubility (Henry’s law constant ~4×105 M/atm). In those same airmasses, concentrations of reactive halogen species, specifically bromine monoxide (BrO) are below detection limits even though models predict up to 1.3 pptv. Presented here is a surface reaction that holds promise for explaining one or both puzzles. In the lab, fatty acids on a simulated sea surface microlayer (SML) undergo photochemical transformation to unsaturated aldehydes (2-alkenals), subsequent ozonolysis of which produces glyoxal. In a follow-up study, 2-alkenals were shown to react with Br to produce HBr in high yield. Depending on the concentration of fatty acids in SML, fatty acid photochemistry holds promise as a candidate for the missing BrO sink.

The second work presented are aircraft ozone eddy covariance (EC) flux over the Pacific Ocean during the 2023 Technical Innovation Into Iodine and GV Environmental Research (TI3GER) technical campaign. Ozone EC fluxes were measured with three independent ozone sensors of two different designs (NCAR Fast O3, a nitric oxide chemiluminescence instrument, and KIT Fast Airborne O3, a coumarin dry chemiluminescence instrument), which has not been done before. All three instruments were shown to be suitable for EC flux experiments. Particularly interesting case studies are presented in which ozone EC flux exhibits different spatial variability than water vapor EC flux. In addition, the availability of three independent EC flux measurements was used to constrain the uncertainty and limit of detection (LOD) methods in the literature."

Join Alyssa Willet, Senior Training and Development Specialist, for this one-hour preview session of the award-winning multi-day Crucial Conversations course. You will learn how to keep your strong emotions from taking control of the conversation and how to create emotions that will bring you into dialogue. 

Join Via Zoom: https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/92067855137?from=addon

WHAT IS A CRUCIAL CONVERSATION? 

A Crucial Conversation is a discussion between two or more people where the stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong. When conversations turn

crucial, people tend to follow one of two ineffective paths: they either speak directly and abrasively to get the results they want but harm relationships, or

they remain silent with the hope of preserving relationships only to sacrifice results.

THERE IS A BETTER WAY

Crucial Conversations® for Mastering Dialogue gives people the skills to step into disagreement—rather than over or around it—and turn disagreement into dialogue for improved relationships and results. Crucial Conversations® for Mastering Dialogue teaches nine powerful skill sets grounded in decades of social science research. 

Please follow this link to register/track attendance in this session.

Please join Lucia Harrop and Jasmine Moore along with the CIRES HR Team, for the Annual Summary of Accomplishments (ASA) training and a discussion of how ASA and career track are connected: May 10 at 10-11:30 am. Join via zoom: https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/91851088431

This webinar will discuss findings from the Grasslands Synthesis Project, recently published as USGS Open File-Report 2023-1037 and USGS Open File-Report 2023-1036. Grasslands in the Great Plains are of ecological, economic, and cultural importance in the United States, and understanding how climate change and variability will impact these ecosystems is crucial for successful grassland management in the 21st century. In 2020, the NC CASC began a project to establish a baseline of information to best serve grassland managers at Federal, State, and Tribal agencies and nongovernmental organizations to help meet regional grassland management goals. This project, “A Synthesis of Climate Impacts, Stakeholder Needs, and Adaptation in Northern Great Plains Grassland Ecosystems'' (hereafter, the Grasslands Synthesis Project), had two primary goals: (1) to synthesize management goals and challenges for grassland managers across the region and (2) to assess the state-of-the-science and identify knowledge gaps for addressing the goals and challenges within the context of climate change. Two working groups and an advisory committee worked for two years to collect, analyze, and synthesize existing reports, peer-reviewed literature, and management documents. We identified 70 specific research questions organized into 15 categories of research needs that, if answered, would support grassland managers in meeting their management goals under a changing climate. Those research questions were then used to guide a synthesis of available information on the impacts of climate change and variability on temperature, water availability, wildfire, vegetation, wildlife, large-bodied ruminants, grazing, and land-use change and the implications for grassland management in the North Central region. We will discuss these findings, remaining research needs, and next steps in this research.

Register here: https://cuboulder.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAvdeiopzoiH9TxDIwaNZbV8jk5Z...

The CIRES Members' Council is pleased to announce the 18th annual CIRES Rendezvous. This institute-wide symposium will take place on Tuesday, May 16, 2023 with the aim of bringing awareness to the depth, breadth, and quality of the pacesetting science being done at CIRES. We hope to encourage collaborations that might result in new interdisciplinary research, and to facilitate connections among our many innovative scientists, science support staff, and administrative staff.

This half-day event includes an entire afternoon devoted to CIRES science and poster presentations; we encourage CIRES researchers to participate and present your research. We are happy for you to present posters that may have been used previously at AMS, GSA, AGU, ACS, or other meetings. Of course, you are also free to develop a new poster or present new work. Poster abstracts are due April 18. Lunch invitations (CIRES only) will go out at the end of March; RSVPs will be due late April.

For more information, schedule, poster submission, etc: https://ciresevents.colorado.edu/rendezvous/.

The Weather and Science Story behind OpenSnow by Joel Gratz

Abstract: Joel Gratz, the founding meteorologist at OpenSnow, will discuss how OpenSnow creates its (often but not always accurate) snow forecasts, some of the challenges that arose during the 15+ year journey of building the business which now serves forecasts to millions of people worldwide, and the difficulty of gathering snow data around the world. In addition to a few slides, Joel will walk through the OpenSnow app in real-time, and he would love to take many questions and work through the answers with live data.

Bio: Joel Gratz is the founding meteorologist and Colorado forecaster for OpenSnow, a mobile app and website that provides snow forecasts and travel advice to millions skiers and snowboarders annually. Joel graduated from Penn State with a degree in meteorology and then earned his MS and MBA from the University of Colorado. As a die-hard skier and powder seeker, Joel spent years studying local weather patterns and made his first public snow forecast in 2007 to an email list of 38 people. When he’s not forecasting and running the business, Joel talks excitedly about weather to anyone who will listen and he also finds plenty of time to enjoy the outdoors through skiing, biking, hiking, and even chasing and photographing thunderstorms and tornadoes. Joel, his wife,  and son Levi live in Boulder, CO, but when the snow flies, they hit the road to personally test his forecasts.

This panel discussion is part of the "Mercury in the Atmosphere & Ecosystem NSF Data Workshop" and is open to the public. Panel will include talks by each speaker and 15 minutes for open discussion at the end. Speakers include:

• Viral Shah (NASA-GSFC) - An improved chemical mechanism for atmospheric Hg models
• Alexei Khalizov (NJIT) - Molecular characterization of Hg(II) in the laboratory is achieved. What is next?
• Alkuin Koenig (University of Grenoble, France) - Mercury observations in the Southern Hemisphere free troposphere and inside a volcanic plume
• Seth Lyman & Lynne Gratz (Utah State & Colorado College) - Methodological advances in measuring oxidized Hg and its origins at SPL
• Rainer Volkamer, Christopher Lee, Romulo Cruz-Simbron & Sandeep Sharma (CU Chemistry & CIRES) - Halogen measurements using MAX-DOAS: developing the F0AM chemical box model for iodine chemistry & calculations on the Hg-I bond strength
• Gannet Hallar (University of Utah) - New Particle formation at SPL

Where: Ekeley Sciences Building, University of Colorado Boulder (Boulder, CO), Rooms CIRES 340 (Auditorium). 

This panel discussion is part of the "Mercury in the Atmosphere & Ecosystem NSF Data Workshop" and is open to the public. Panel will include talks by each speaker and 15 minutes for open discussion at the end. Speakers include:

• Tamar Barkay (Rutgers) - The biogeochemical cycle of mercury
• Peter Weiss-Penzias (UC Santa Cruz) - Mercury in coastal marine ecosystems
• Eve-Lyn Hinckley (CU EBIO/CIRES) - Investigating the Interactions of Sulfur and Mercury Methylation: Insights from Managed Ecosystems
• Hannah Miller (CU EBIO/CIRES) - Mercury cycling along a Rocky Mountain elevation gradient and methylmercury production within alpine and subalpine wetlands”

Where: Ekeley Sciences Building, University of Colorado Boulder (Boulder, CO), Rooms CIRES 340 (Auditorium).