Project Final Report: Linking Plant Stress, Biogenic SOA, and CCN Production - A New Feedback in the Climate System?
This project worked toward understanding the role of variable biogenic emissions in the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA), and in turn the potential for this aerosol to affect cloud droplet formation. It was premised on the idea that a changing climate could impose biogenic and abiogenic stresses on plants that would affect the emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The transformation of these VOCs to SOA and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) implied the possibility of a feedback mechanism within the biosphere/atmosphere/climate system. The project’s activities centered on laboratory experiments to study the effects of stresses on plants and plant-derived material under controlled conditions, observing both the VOC emissions and the aerosol that formed from the oxidation of those VOCs. The results highlighted the potentially important contributions of stress and decomposition mechanisms to biogenic SOA formation. Related field measurements elucidated the conditions when these factors could be important in the ambient environment. The project also revealed repeated the complexity of the stress/VOC emission relationship, and the difficulty in expressing these relationships in a comprehensive manner.
- Research Organization:
- Washington State Univ., Pullman, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- SC0003899
- OSTI ID:
- 1354727
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-WSU-3899
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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