Prather Research Group

Experts from across chemical, physical, and biological disciplines are participating in an intensive sampling campaign in the ocean-atmosphere chamber housed at the Hydraulics Laboratory within Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Follow the latest from CAICE's intensive campaign on our blog and facebook.

This two-week intensive sampling campaign is highly collaborative, building bridges between measurements made most often in fundamental chemical studies with those in field sampling campaigns. This effort will directly address one of the NSF’s grand challenges: integrating reductionist and complexity approaches to solve complicated problems by bringing the complex ocean into the laboratory.

The main objectives of this study are:

• Detailed characterization of realistic sea spray aerosols generated from breaking waves under controlled conditions.
• Further investigate the role of seawater chemistry on the coupled chemical and physical properties of aerosols.
• Study how the heterogeneous chemistry occurring on sea spray aerosols varies as a function of ocean chemistry.

Three types of measurements will be performed: 1) real-time measurements, 2) Experimentation on Filter or Impactor Collected Particles and 3) Analysis/Control of Seawater Chemical and Biological Conditions. Experts from around the world are participating in this campaign. Here is a detailed list of measurements and collaborators.