Award Abstract # 1305427
CCI Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment

NSF Org: CHE
Division Of Chemistry
Recipient: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO
Initial Amendment Date: September 26, 2013
Latest Amendment Date: February 8, 2017
Award Number: 1305427
Award Instrument: Cooperative Agreement
Program Manager: Lin He
lhe@nsf.gov
 (703)292-4956
CHE
 Division Of Chemistry
MPS
 Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Start Date: October 1, 2013
End Date: September 30, 2018 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $20,000,000.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $20,000,000.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2013 = $4,000,000.00
FY 2014 = $4,000,000.00

FY 2015 = $4,000,000.00

FY 2016 = $8,000,000.00
History of Investigator:
  • Kimberly Prather (Principal Investigator)
    kprather@ucsd.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of California-San Diego
9500 GILMAN DR
LA JOLLA
CA  US  92093-0021
(858)534-4896
Sponsor Congressional District: 50
Primary Place of Performance: University of California-San Diego
San Diego
CA  US  92093-0314
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
50
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): UYTTZT6G9DT1
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): OFFICE OF MULTIDISCIPLINARY AC,
CHE CENTERS
Primary Program Source: 01001617DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
01001415DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01001718DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01001516DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01001314DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 6882, 1303, 9216, 1108, 8084, 7722, 1524, 7433
Program Element Code(s): 125300, 199500
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.049

ABSTRACT

The Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment (CAICE) will tackle the grand challenge of elucidating the chemical complexity and reactivity of atmospheric aerosol particles. The primary objective of CAICE is to better understand how chemical heterogeneity, morphology, phase, and molecular composition, at the individual aerosol particle level, control the properties and reactivity of atmospheric aerosols. Detailed chemical knowledge is needed to predict how aerosol chemistry influences reactivity, light absorption and scattering behavior, and cloud droplet and ice crystal formation. A globally important type of aerosol, sea spray, has tremendous chemical variability that depends on ocean chemistry, biology, and physical conditions such as waves, wind, and solar radiation. CAICE utilizes a unique experimental ocean-atmosphere facility to bring the real-world, complex chemistry of the ocean and atmosphere directly into the laboratory to replicate natural sea spray aerosol transformations in a controlled setting. An interdisciplinary team composed of chemists from all fields, as well as marine biologists, and oceanographic and atmospheric scientists will provide diverse perspectives and approaches to gain fundamental chemical insights into how aerosols form and subsequently behave in the atmosphere. New experimental tools for spatially-resolved chemical analysis along with new theoretical methodologies for molecular-level and coarse-grained simulations will be developed to explore the complex, heterogeneous, and dynamic aspects of aerosol particles bridging a broad range of length and time scales.

CAICE will advance a wide range of scientific disciplines, including interfacial chemistry, air quality and atmospheric chemistry, nucleation, climate science, multiphase and heterogeneous reaction processes, nanoparticle properties, and ocean biogeochemistry. The important societal benefits include: 1) improved ability to predict regional climate, atmospheric chemistry, and water resources via advanced models that incorporate aerosol impacts on clouds and precipitation processes, and 2) the interdisciplinary training and education of the next generation of scientific leaders who will develop solutions for large scale environmental systems. CAICE students will be at the forefront of fundamental chemistry while addressing global perspectives related to the ocean, atmosphere, and climate. All CAICE participants will receive training in effectively conveying their scientific findings to the public, entrepreneurship, and play active roles in the Center's education and outreach programs. The research will be communicated to the public in close collaboration with the UC San Diego's Birch Aquarium and other public venues.

The Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment is funded as part of the Centers for Chemical Innovation (CCI) program.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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(Showing: 1 - 10 of 136)
Adams, E. M. and Casper, C. B. and Allen, H. C. "Effect of cation enrichment on dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) monolayers at the air-water interface" J Colloid Interface Sci , v.478 , 2016 , p.353-64 10.1016/j.jcis.2016.06.016
Adams, E. M. and Verreault, D. and Jayarathne, T. and Cochran, R. E. and Stone, E. A. and Allen, H. C. "Surface organization of a DPPC monolayer on concentrated SrCl2 and ZnCl2 solutions" Phys Chem Chem Phys , v.18 , 2016 , p.32345-323 10.1039/c6cp06887a
Adams, E. M. and Wellen, B. A. and Thiraux, R. and Reddy, S. K. and Vidalis, A. S. and Paesani, F. and Allen, H. C. "Sodium-carboxylate contact ion pair formation induces stabilization of palmitic acid monolayers at high pH" Phys Chem Chem Phys , v.19 , 2017 , p.10481-104 10.1039/c7cp00167c
Adamson, Brian D. and Miller, Morgan E. C. and Continetti, Robert E. "The aerosol impact spectrometer: a versatile platform for studying the velocity dependence of nanoparticle-surface impact phenomena" EPJ Techniques and Instrumentation , v.4 , 2017 , p.2 10.1140/epjti/s40485-017-0037-6
Andrew P. Ault, Timothy L. Guasco, Jonas Baltrusaitis, Olivia S. Ryder, Jonathan Trueblood, Douglas B. Collins, Matthew J. Ruppel, Luis A. Cuadra-Rodriguez, Kimberly A. Prather, Vicki H. Grassian "Heterogeneous Reactivity of Nitric Acid with Nascent Sea Spray Aerosol: Large Differences Observed between and within Individual Particles" Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters , v.5 , 2014 , p.2493
Andrew P. Ault, Timothy L. Guasco, Olivia S. Ryder, Jonas Baltrusaitis, Luis A. Cuadra-Rodriguez, Douglas B. Collins, Matthew J. Ruppel, Timothy H. Bertram, Kimberly A. Prather, Vicki H. Grassian "Inside versus Outside: Ion Redistribution in Nitric Acid Reacted Sea Spray Aerosol Particles as Determined by Single Particle Analysis" Journal of the American Chemical Society , v.135 , 2013 , p.14528
Arismendi-Arrieta, D. J. and Riera, M. and Bajaj, P. and Prosmiti, R. and Paesani, F. "i-TTM Model for Ab Initio-Based Ion-Water Interaction Potentials. 1. Halide-Water Potential Energy Functions" J Phys Chem B , v.120 , 2016 , p.1822-32 10.1021/acs.jpcb.5b09562
Arpa Hudait and Valeria Molinero "Ice Crystallization in Ultrafine Water-Salt Aerosols: Nucleation, Ice-Solution Equilibrium and Internal Structure" Journal of the American Chemical Society , v.136 , 2014 , p.8081
Ault, A.; Gausco, T. L.; Ryder, O.; Baltrusaitis, J.; Caudra-Rodriquez, L.; Collins, D. B.; Ruppel, M.J.; Bertram, T. H.; Prather, K. A.; Grassian, V. H. "Inside versus Outside: Ion Redistribution in Nitric Acid Reacted Sea Spray Aerosol Particles as Determined by Single Particle Analysis" Journal of the American Chemical Society , v.135 , 2013 , p.14528 10.1021/ja407117x
Ault, A.P., Guasco, T.L., Baltrusaitis, J., Ryder, O.S., Trueblood, J., Collins, D. B., Ruppel, M.J., Cuadra-Rodriguez, L.A., Prather, K.A., Grassian, V.H. "Heterogeneous Reactivity of Nitric Acid with Nascent Sea Spray Aerosol: Large Differences Observed between and within Individual Particles" Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters , v.5 , 2014 , p.2943 10.1021/jz5008802
Bajaj, P. and Gotz, A. W. and Paesani, F. "Toward Chemical Accuracy in the Description of Ion-Water Interactions through Many-Body Representations. I. Halide-Water Dimer Potential Energy Surfaces" J Chem Theory Comput , 2016 10.1021/acs.jctc.6b00302
(Showing: 1 - 10 of 136)

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

Current and future climate depend on chemistry in many profound ways. Chemical processes alter the concentration, lifetime, and properties of atmospheric gases and aerosol particles, which in turm determine their net impact on climate and air pollution. Human activities have significantly altered Earth?s climate through the addition of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that display net warming of the atmosphere, whereas aerosol particles can either warm or cool the atmosphere depending on their chemistry via the direct absorption and scattering of incoming solar radiation and the alteration of cloud microphysical properties.

Despite significant advances in atmospheric chemistry research over the past several decades, there is still considerable uncertainty that stems from an incomplete understanding of aerosol chemistry, and more specifically:

  1. the chemistry and physics of complex environmental interfaces,
  2. detailed reaction mechanisms, kinetic rates, and product yields for heterogeneous and multi-phase reactions,
  3. the dependence of water uptake and ice nucleation on the chemical composition, physical phase state, and morphology of individual aerosol particles.

The NSF Center for Aerosol Impacts on the Chemistry of the Environment (CAICE) was established to develop a fundamental understanding of complex chemical processes at a level of detail that can be used to improve our overall understanding of aerosol impacts on climate and our environment.

The scientific focus of CAICE is on aerosol particles derived from oceanic sources, which dominate the natural aerosol burden in marine environments and contribute significantly to global aerosol concentrations. Insights into the physical and biological factors controlling the chemistry of nascent sea-spray aerosol (SSA) have remained elusive due to interferences from other sources in real world marine environments. We successfully transferred the chemical complexity of the ocean/atmosphere system into the lab, enabling control studies which are providing unprecedented insights into the molecular composition and physical properties of SSA.

The symbolic cornerstone of CAICE is the atmosphere-ocean interaction facility at UC San Diego that has led to the:

  1. creation of the first indoor phytoplankton bloom within a wave channel for the production of nascent SSA over multiple microbial loops,
  2. discovery of unexplored bioorganic species and reaction pathways present in nascent SSA, the complex interplay between anionic surfactants and metal cations that dictates interfacial composition, and surfactants that can enhance and even participate in reactions, and
  3. new framework for distilling the chemical complexity of nascent SSA and the reactions and phase transitions that occur into general, yet representative models that can be used to create molecular mechanisms from which predictions can be made.

We are now uniquely positioned to address grand challenges in chemistry-climate interactions that are bridging the existing gaps between molecular level theory, laboratory experiments, field observations, and climate models.

Many CAICE products are already advancing the representation of SSA in climate models, while the tools and fundamental understanding that CAICE has achieved are generating novel innovations that are of use in the chemistry community. These innovations span both new theoretical tools for describing rare events such as nucleation, as well as novel experimental approaches for characterizing the chemical composition of soft materials at the nanoscale.

The education and outreach program disseminate CAICE research and fundamental chemistry in both formal and informal educational environments.

CAICE has created many innovative tools including the Automated Ice Spectrometer, Aerosol Impact Spectrometer, Mobile Quadrupole Ion Trap, and Marine Aerosol Reference tank (MART) and MiniMART.

CAICE also developed scientific devices to be used as education and outreach tools, such as the Collaborative Learning in Environmental and Aerosol Research (CLEAR CAICE) particle counters, and cellphones app-integrated devices such as a brown carbon sensor, pH meter, 3-color spectrometer, and 2-channel sun photometer.

Our CLEAR CAICE program has engaged  >530 high school students in Iowa and San Diego since 2015, with evaluation surveys indicating the program increased their understanding of research methodology (by 16%). CAICE also developed a chemistry and climate kit for outreach at K-12 schools and public events; this kit has been used in over 95 events across the country. Our formal education efforts have focused on mentoring the next generation of chemists by training them to tackle complex environmental problems. We have held >17 professional development workshops emphasizing the importance of science communication, created a UCSD instrument development course to teach chemists how to develop new technologies and trained students in effective mentoring.

We strive to increase diversity and broaden participation in every aspect of CAICE. Outreach efforts such as the CLEAR CAICE program, are aimed at increasing student participation at Title 1 schools nationwide. We actively participate in diversity conferences and perform outreach events. By expanding our summer research program, we achieved metrics of 40% URM and 50% female, demonstrating our commitment to diversity. In these same efforts, CAICE implemented a successful faculty seed grant program to minority investigators in order to further increase diversity.

 


Last Modified: 03/11/2019
Modified by: Kimberly A Prather

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