Integrating New Facilities for Aerosol Measurements with Eddy Covariance Flux Measurements for Improved Understanding of Atmosphere-Biosphere Interactions

ANDREW METCALF, James Henry, Thomas O'Halloran, Clemson University

     Abstract Number: 591
     Working Group: Advancing Aerosol Science through Data Analysis Tools

Abstract
We present on new facilities at Clemson University for the measurement of aerosols and vertical fluxes of carbon dioxide and water vapor. The first facility is a portable trailer with a 92 ft tall telescoping tower to support flux measurements and characterization of turbulence and vertical mixing. The trailer has a climate-controlled enclosure with two standard instrument racks to support sensitive instruments, namely aerosol instrumentation. The base facility is equipped with a scanning mobility particle sizer and optical particle counter to cover size distribution measurements from 5-3000 nm. A tricolor absorption photometer measures aerosol absorption properties as a proxy for determining the influence of biomass burning on a given airmass. The second facility is an NSF-sponsored Community Instrument and Facility, a single-particle soot photometer, for the quantification of black carbon aerosol mass and mixing state. These facilities are requestable together or individually for ground-based deployments over a variety of land surface types.

A critical component to the success of these new facilities is the data assimilation across whatever instrumentation is simultaneously deployed at the trailer and satellite remote sensing over the region of deployment. Together, these multiple data sources can combine to improve understanding of aerosols’ impact on atmosphere-biosphere exchange, reduce uncertainties in carbon flux estimates, and enhance confidence in satellite-based assessments of air quality.