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Eva Pfannerstill – Using airborne flux measurements to investigate how biogenic volatile organic compound emissions change under forest stress
November 5 @ 16:00 - 17:00
CESOC continues the seminar series “My Research” this Winter term 2024/25 with a series of talks given by scientists from University of Bonn, University of Cologne and Research Centre Jülich.
This semester, we are excited to announce that the seminar series will be in a hybrid format and hosted by the different CESOC partners and it will also be streamed online (via zoom). The seminars will take place on Tuesdays on a bi-weekly basis at 16:00 hr.
on Tuesday, 05 Nov. 2024 at 16:00 (CST)
Dr. Eva Pfannerstill
from the Institute of Climate and Energy Systems, Troposphere (ICE-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich, talking on their work
“Using airborne flux measurements to investigate how biogenic volatile organic compound emissions change under forest stress”
It is open to any interested person within the CESOC research disciplines (any Earth system sciences, mathematics or computer science).
Please contact info[@]cesoc.net, if you would like to participate.
Full Schedule is available here!
Abstract:
Terrestrial plants emit 80% of the volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere that drive the chemical formation of hazardous air pollutants. These gases rapidly oxidize, leading to the formation of ozone and particles, which pose risks for human health and impact Earth’s climate by acting as greenhouse gas, scattering light, or serving as cloud condensation nuclei.
The increased frequency and intensity of drought, heat, and herbivory stress caused by global warming stresses plants, changing the composition and amount of gases they emit. However, the overall impact on the Earth’s atmosphere is unknown, specifically due to uncertainties of the effects of combined stressors at the ecosystem scale. The current state of knowledge, mainly based on few laboratory investigations, makes it virtually impossible to predict impacts of plant stress on air quality and climate.
How will plant emissions impact future air quality under climate change while the switch to renewable energy reduces anthropogenic emissions? I will introduce the Helmholtz Young Investigator project “ClimStress”, which addresses this question by a combination of controlled chamber experiments with trees exposed systematically to combinations of stressors, and of the first airborne direct emission measurements from a stressed forest onboard a Zeppelin. I will also show how I have used airborne flux measurements in the past to estimate the impact of biogenic emissions on air pollutant formation in Los Angeles, and to attribute emissions to sources.