Investigating the Spatio-Temporal Controls of Summertime Sea Breeze Circulation on the Atmospheric Aerosol Environment in the Houston Coastal Region
TAMANNA SUBBA, Michael Jensen, Ashish Singh, Rebecca Trojanowski, Dié Wang, Maria Zawadowicz, Chongai Kuang,
Brookhaven National Laboratory Abstract Number: 382
Working Group: Aerosols, Clouds and Climate
AbstractFrom October 1, 2021, to September 30, 2022, the DOE ARM TRacking Aerosol Convection Interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER) campaign provides a unique opportunity to study the aerosol processes that impact the climate in Houston, Texas, particularly in the urban and coastal environment where isolated convection systems and industrial and urban emissions are commonly observed. Additional aerosol measurements from June 1 to September 30, 2022, are gathered from an ancillary site in a more rural atmospheric environment and provide a strong contrast to the more urban-influenced aerosol measurements at the main site. In the TRACER environment, sea-breeze circulations (SBC), driven by the temperature differences between the land and water surfaces, play a crucial role in affecting local weather conditions in coastal regions by forming convective clouds and altering surface thermodynamics, leading to turbulence and mixing in the lower atmosphere. Consequently, SBC could have spatio-temporal control over the atmospheric aerosol environment, affecting their physical, chemical, and optical properties. A set of comprehensive observations were analyzed, collected during the summer months of 2022 from both the TRACER main and ancillary sites, including measurements of (1) aerosol number size distribution and concentration, (2) bulk aerosol chemical composition, and (3) meteorology. The data is used to characterize the atmospheric controls on aerosol. The WRF-Chem model simulations, constrained by these observations, were then performed to explore the spatio-temporal controls of meteorological phenomena such as SBC on the aerosol environment in the coastal region of Houston. This combined measurement and modeling analysis will provide valuable insights into the meteorological controls on the local to a regional aerosol environment in the coastal Houston region.