PBAS

Profiling of BioAerosols at SAIL (PBAS)

1 May 2022 - 31 July 2022

Lead Scientist: Maria Zawadowicz

Observatory: AMF

Bioaerosols—aerosols of biological origin—have wide-ranging atmospheric implications, including acting as ice-nucleating particles (INPs) to trigger ice formation in mixed-phase clouds. The potential impacts of bioaerosols on clouds depends on the vertical extent of biological material, yet vertical profiles of speciated aerosols can be difficult to measure without deploying dedicated bioaerosol samplers on airborne platforms such as an aircraft or a tethered balloon. This project aims to investigate the vertical profiles of atmospheric bioaerosol concentrations during the ARM Surface-Atmosphere Integrated Laboratory (SAIL) campaign in the Colorado River basin.  We deploy a novel, small-footprint fluorescence sensor based on the successful portable optical particle counter (POPS) design alongside a size- and time-resolved aerosol collector (STAC) sampler on ARM’s tethered balloon system (TBS) during spring and summer of 2023 to obtain simultaneous vertically resolved profiles of fluorescent aerosol concentrations, accumulation and coarse-mode size distributions, and samples of aerosol for subsequent analysis with high-resolution mass spectrometry and microscopy at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) for identification of specific particle morphologies, chemical compositions, and biomarkers.