The ACROSS (Atmospheric Chemistry of the Suburban Forest) project will develop strong collaborations that reveal heretofore unknown details of the evolution of particle properties in actual and controlled situations. The resulting new knowledge will be used to improve numerical models, so they can be used to better quantify the impacts of pollutants on the environment, the climate, and human populations.

The primary objective of this proposed research is to improve knowledge of the chemical evolution of mid-latitude urban plumes when they mix with surrounding biogenic emissions primarily making use of atmospheric field campaigns leading to better representation of key processes within numerical models.

This project takes advantage of advances in analytical capability, improved understanding of the degradation chemistry of biogenic organic compounds, and the considerable expertise of scientists and staff along with the extensive infrastructure available within LISA, UPEC, and UPD.

The key feature of this project is the implementation of a large field campaign, currently planned for summer 2021 (pre-campaign in 2020), which will deploy many analytical instruments for gas-phase and particle-phase composition and characterization aboard a variety of platforms including aircraft, towers, and balloons. The observations will focus on the interactions of exported Paris emissions to a forested area in the Ile-de-France region. We expect these encounters to result in changes to the atmospheric chemistry due to the high reactivity of biogenic volatile organic compounds and because of the higher oxides of nitrogen levels carried from the urban center. Critical to quantifying these changes are high-quality observations of oxidants and secondary species formed in the atmosphere (for example, oxygenated VOCs, organic nitrates) within the gas and aerosol phases. Figure 1 schematically depicts the experimental design.

 

 

 

 

 

Contact LISA:Christopher Cantrell
PI: Christopher Cantrell (LISA, UMR7583, Créteil)

 

Communiqués de presse:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-climatechange-summit-scientist/trumps-climate-politics-propel-us-scientist-to-new-start-in-france-idUKKBN1E62JC
https://cen.acs.org/articles/96/i5/With-Make-Planet-our-Great-Again-France-aims-to-lead-world-in-climate-research.html