UCSD Chemists and Scripps Researchers to Create Center Devoted to Chemistry's Influence on Climate

(Center for aerosol impacts on climate and the environment to build ocean-atmosphere simulator on Scripps campus) Scientists in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego have been awarded a Center for Chemical Innovation to study prevailing mysteries about how chemistry influences climate and atmospheric processes. The $1.5 million National Science Foundation award establishes the Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment (CAICE), which aims to determine how the chemical composition of aerosol particles and the chemical reactions occurring at their surface impacts Earths climate. Until now, studies focused on determining the impact of aerosol chemical processes on climate have been conducted on either highly simplified model systems in the laboratory, making extension to real-world conditions challenging, or under overly complex atmospheric conditions, making deduction of the underlying driving mechanisms cloudy. As a result, chemical processes associated with aerosol particles are poorly constrained in most computer models used for climate predictions. Were going to understand how real systems behave and how chemistry affects climate, said center principal investigator Kim Prather, an atmospheric chemistry professor, who holds appointments at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCSD as well as at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. This knowledge will be used to dramatically improve the representation of aerosol chemical mechanisms in global climate models, and how they impact climate processes such as cloud formation, cloud lifetime, precipitation patterns, and direct aerosol absorption. The center is designed to bring together experts in all areas of chemistry, with physical, chemical, and biological oceanographers with the intent of determining how chemical processes impact climate from the molecular scale all the way to the global scale. Were understanding at fundamental level when is chemistry important, said Prather. To overcome such observational hurdles, the award, which in later phases could direct as much as $40 million toward the center, will support the modification of an existing wave tank on the Scripps campus to create CAICEs research centerpiece, a closed chamber that can simulate ocean-atmosphere interactions. Researchers will add various atmosphere-changing ingredients  from carbon dioxide to phytoplankton to varying levels of light  to measure the effects of different variables. Were going to build an ocean and then were going to build an atmosphere over the ocean, said Prather. Well be able to do all kinds of experiments in this microcosm. The test tank, currently used to generate waves for fluid dynamics studies, could be ready for the centers experiments by January 2011. The center will include research led by both investigators in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Scripps who represent fields ranging from fundamental chemistry to biological, chemical, and physical oceanography. Co-investigators and advisors from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry include: Timothy Bertram, Francesco Paesani, Robert Pomeroy, Mario Molina, and Mark Thiemens. Scripps co-investigators and advisors include: Grant Deane, Lynn Russell, Lihini Aluwhihare, Brian Palenik, Andrew Dickson, and V. Ramanathan. It will also feature an educational component that will be worked into marine education programs at Birch Aquarium at Scripps. Prather said that Paul Ecke Central Elementary School in Encinitas and Castle Park High School in Chula Vista are incorporating related atmospheric studies into their curricula using the centers outreach budget. We are delighted that the Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment is being established, said Birch Aquarium at Scripps Executive Director Nigella Hillgarth. We are looking forward to collaborating on outreach programs that are designed to bring awareness to schools and the public about this cutting-edge research on aerosol particles and oceans, atmosphere, climate, chemistry and biology.