THE ATMOSPHERIC AGING AND IMPACTS OF BLACK CARBON

Ogochukwu Yvonne Enekwizu
Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton NY

Black carbon (BC) particles originating from fossil fuel combustion and biomass burning contribute substantially to climate warming both directly through the absorption of solar radiation (aerosol-radiation interactions), and indirectly by changing cloud properties such as cloud amount and lifetime (aerosol-cloud interactions). Quantifying the radiative impacts of these BC particles remains a significant challenge that ultimately stems from a poor understanding of the fundamental mechanisms governing the evolution of the structural, chemical, optical, and hygroscopic properties of these particles, and their large spatial and temporal heterogeneity during atmospheric transport. In this seminar, I will highlight some of my past work on the effects of coating distribution and evolving aggregate morphology on the optical properties of aged BC particles (from fossil fuel combustion), and my current work on quantifying the impacts of cloud processing on the size distribution of BC particles formed from biomass burning (wildfires) and the subsequent changes in optical properties resulting from these interactions. Specific results include experimentally constrained modeling simulations of BC optical properties and laboratory measurements of the cloud droplet activation of BC particles.