COMMIT in 7-SEAS/BASELInE: Operation of and Observations from a Novel, Mobile Laboratory for Measuring In-Situ Properties of Aerosols and Gases

Peter  Pantina; Si-Chee  Tsay; Ta-Chih  Hsiao; Adrian M.  Loftus; Ferret  Kuo; Chang-Feng  Ou-Yang; Andrew M.  Sayer; Sheng-Hsiang  Wang; Neng-Huei Lin; N. Christina  Hsu; Serm  Janjai; Somporn  Chantara; Anh X.  Nguyen

doi:10.4209/aaqr.2015.11.0630

COMMIT in 7-SEAS/BASELInE: Operation of and Observations from a Novel, Mobile Laboratory for Measuring In-Situ Properties of Aerosols and Gases

Peter Pantina This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.¹^,2, Si-Chee Tsay², Ta-Chih Hsiao³, Adrian M. Loftus²^,4, Ferret Kuo⁵, Chang-Feng Ou-Yang⁵, Andrew M. Sayer²^,6, Sheng-Hsiang Wang⁵, Neng-Huei Lin⁵, N. Christina Hsu², Serm Janjai⁷, Somporn Chantara⁸, Anh X. Nguyen⁹

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¹Science Systems and Applications, Inc., Lanham, Maryland, USA
²NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
³Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Central University, Chung-Li 32001, Taiwan
⁴ESSIC, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA
⁵Department of Atmospheric Sciences, National Central University, Chung-Li 32001, Taiwan
⁶GESTAR/USRA, Columbia, Maryland, USA
⁷Silpakorn University, Nakhon Pathom, Thailand
⁸Faculty of Science, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand
⁹Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam

Received: November 18, 2015
Revised: January 14, 2016
Accepted: January 25, 2016
Download Citation: ||https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.2015.11.0630

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Cite this article:

Pantina, P., Tsay, S.C., Hsiao, T.C., Loftus, A.M., Kuo, F., Ou-Yang, C.F., Sayer, A.M., Wang, S.H., Lin, N.H., Hsu, N.C., Janjai, S., Chantara, S. and Nguyen, A.X. (2016). COMMIT in 7-SEAS/BASELInE: Operation of and Observations from a Novel, Mobile Laboratory for Measuring In-Situ Properties of Aerosols and Gases. Aerosol Air Qual. Res. 16: 2728-2741. https://doi.org/10.4209/aaqr.2015.11.0630

HIGHLIGHTS

Biomass burning aerosols and trace gases affect the climate of Southeast Asia.
We operate over 25 trace gas and aerosol instruments to monitor air quality.
We outline standard operating procedures for our measurements for future reference.
A method of measuring aerosol hygroscopic properties has been developed and tested.
The datasets are unique but correlated and provide insight on aerosol behavior.

ABSTRACT

Trace gases and aerosols (particularly biomass-burning aerosols) have important implications for air quality and climate studies in Southeast Asia (SEA). This paper describes the purpose, operation, and datasets collected from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s (NASA/GSFC) Chemical, Optical, and Microphysical Measurements of In-situ Troposphere (COMMIT) laboratory, a mobile platform designed to measure trace gases and optical/microphysical properties of naturally occurring and anthropogenic aerosols. More importantly, the laboratory houses a specialized humidification system to characterize hygroscopic growth/enhancement, a behavior that affects aerosol properties and cloud-aerosol interactions and is generally underrepresented in the current literature. A summary of the trace gas and optical/microphysical measurements is provided, along with additional detail and analysis of data collected from the hygroscopic system during the 2015 Seven South-East Asian Studies (7-SEAS) field campaign. The results suggest that data from the platform are reliable and will complement future studies of aerosols and air quality in SEA and other regions of interest.

Keywords: Biomass-burning; Aerosol; In-situ; 7-SEAS, BASELInE; Air quality; Hygroscopicity