Breakout Summary Report

ARM/ASR User and PI Meeting

19 - 23 March 2018

Session Title: Aerosol Processes Working Group Breakout Session
Session Date: 22 March 2018
Session Time: 1:45 PM - 3:45 PM
Number of Attendees: 45
Summary Authors: Nicole Riemer & Jim Smith

Breakout Description

The aerosol processes working group focuses on understanding of processes that control spatial and time-related distribution of aerosols and their chemical, microphysical (occurring on a microscopic scale), and optical properties. The goal is to reduce the uncertainty in radiative forcing (energy imbalance) due to these atmospheric particles. Research areas include: 1) new particle formation; 2) effects of aerosol composition, mixing state, and physical properties on growth, aging, and removal processes; 3) direct and indirect radiative effects of optically absorbing aerosols; and 4) understanding and predicting secondary organic aerosol concentrations and properties.

Main Discussion

The session started off with a presentation by Connor Flynn in his role as the translator for the Aerosol Processes Working Group. Connor explained that his role is to facilitate the communication between the ARM infrastructure and the ASR science community. His priorities are currently the ACSM end-to-end processing, the aerosol size distribution harmonization, and the aerosol absorption products.

Jian Wang presented an overview of ongoing or upcoming campaigns and retrievals that are combined with UAS activities. Among the ideas to connect the E3SM model, a campaign to better constrain dust or a campaign focusing on nitrate (nitrogen cycle) were mentioned. Other themes included field campaigns that focus on an “under-sampled area/conditions”, such as the boreal forests of Canada (clean conditions), the Southern Indian Ocean, or a wintertime aerosol campaign (focusing on multiphase chemistry and aerosol-cloud interactions).

Next on the agenda were brief summaries from each breakout group: SOA (Joel Thornton), ice nucleation (Ann Friedlind), machine learning (Rao Kotamarthi), aerosol standards (Jim Smith), biomass burning (Manvendra Dubey), absorbing aerosols (Allison Aiken), and ARM aerosol measurement strategy (Jim Mather).

Finally, we discussed the timing of the working group breakout session, since this was the first time that the WG meeting was scheduled at the end of the meeting. The majority of the participants thought that scheduling it at the end of the meeting works well because it gives an opportunity to hear the summary of all breakout sessions.