Atmospheric aerosols profoundly affect air quality, visibility, human health, ecosystems, weather, and climate. For example, elevated fine particulate matter has been unequivocally associated with adverse human health impacts. In addition, aerosols impact the Earth energy budget in two distinct ways, directly by absorbing and scattering solar radiation and indirectly by acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) that change the lifetime, coverage, precipitation efficiency, and albedo of clouds. The complex effects of aerosols in the atmosphere partially depend on the particle properties, such as size, number concentration, chemical composition, hygroscopicity, light absorption and scattering, and etc. Currently, the mechanisms leading to PM formation, transformation, and properties remain highly uncertain, hindering efforts in developing effective mitigation policies to reduce the local, regional, and global impacts. Furthermore, the direct and indirect radiative forcings by aerosols represent the largest uncertainty in climate projections of anthropogenic activities. This talk will describe recent progress at Texas A&M University on the investigations of aerosol formation, transformation, and assessments of their impacts on human health and direct and indirect climate forcings, particularly for conditions relevant to polluted urban conditions.

Formation, transformation, and impacts of atmospheric aerosols under polluted environments

252nd National Meeting (2016)

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