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Ice Nucleating Particles in the Marine Atmosphere

Descripción del proyecto

Una nueva instrumentación colma las deficiencias de datos sobre las partículas que nuclean el hielo oceánico

Los aerosoles desempeñan un papel fundamental en la formación de hielo en las nubes, lo que repercute en el clima y el ciclo hidrológico. Las partículas nucleadoras de hielo (INP, por sus siglas en inglés) procedentes de fuentes terrestres han sido objeto de numerosos estudios. Tenemos un conocimiento limitado de las INP en el aerosol marino, un aerosol que contiene sales marinas y componentes orgánicos que entra en la atmósfera principalmente a través de fuertes vientos y olas. Esto se debe en gran medida a la falta de datos sobre el terreno. El equipo del proyecto MarineIce, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, abordará esta carencia con un nuevo laboratorio móvil semiautónomo del INP que aprovechará una novedosa tecnología de microfluidos y desarrollará una nueva cámara de expansión portátil. Los datos que se obtengan servirán de base a un modelo mundial de aerosoles de última generación que respaldarán modelos meteorológicos y climáticos más precisos.

Objetivo

The formation of ice in clouds is fundamentally important to life on our planet since clouds play a key role in climate and the hydrological cycle. Despite the significance of ice formation, our quantitative understanding of sources, properties, mode of action and transport of Ice-Nucleating Particles (INP) is poor. In order to improve our representation of clouds in models we need to understand the ice-nucleating ability of all major aerosol types, including those from the world’s oceans.

Despite oceans covering over 70% of the planet and sea spray being one of the dominant aerosol types in the atmosphere, its role in the formation of ice in clouds remains poorly understood. There are strong indications that biological organic components of sea spray can nucleate ice, but there is a lack of data to quantify it. In contrast, the ice-nucleating ability of major aerosol species from terrestrial sources, such as mineral dusts or bacteria, has received significant attention over the past few decades. A similar effort now needs to be made to understand marine INP. The key limitation to accurately representing INP in models over the world’s oceans is the lack of field data, a deficiency which I intend to address during this ERC fellowship.

I propose to develop and deploy a new semi-autonomous INP instrument based on novel microfluidics technology which will cover the full range of mixed phase cloud conditions, unlike existing instruments. It will be housed in a unique highly instrumented mobile laboratory, which will allow us to access the remote oceans from atmospheric observatories and research ships. The data from these campaigns will be used to constrain the oceanic INP source and define the spatial and temporal distribution of marine INP in a state-of-the-art global aerosol model. In combination, these activities will allow us to quantify this potentially important source of INP which is needed to underpin the next generation of weather and climate models.

Régimen de financiación

ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant

Institución de acogida

UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS
Aportación neta de la UEn
€ 2 681 881,00
Dirección
WOODHOUSE LANE
LS2 9JT Leeds
Reino Unido

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Región
Yorkshire and the Humber West Yorkshire Leeds
Tipo de actividad
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Enlaces
Coste total
€ 2 681 881,00

Beneficiarios (1)