PBAP

Characterizing primary biological aerosol particle (PBAP)

1 June 2022 - 30 September 2022

Lead Scientist: Allison Steiner

Observatory: AMF

This project includes an integrated experimental and modeling study of biological particles using the multi-modal micro-spectroscopy, advanced mass spectrometry, and high-performance computing platforms available at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL). The aim of the proposed work is to investigate vertical gradient of biological particles and their fragments by analyzing samples from the tethered balloon system (TBS) during the ARM/ASR Tracking Aerosol Convection Interactions Experiment (TRACER) campaign. This will include using a suite of EMSL instrumentation to understand the particle composition, mixing state and morphology of particles to identify both primary biological aerosol particles (PBAP) and ruptured PBAP throughout the atmospheric column. Observations from this project will be implemented in a modeling framework to improve the representation of PBAP emission, fate, and cloud processing and understand the role of PBAP on regional aerosol-cloud interactions.