In light of the current changes affecting the Arctic, it is expected that local anthropogenic emissions from shipping activities (i.e., tourism, fishery, commercial cargo shipping, and natural resource extraction) will increase in the future and introduce new sources of pollution into the central Arctic. Ship emissions, from combustion of fossil fuels, are usually made of submicron black carbon, secondarily formed organic, sulfate and nitrate particles, as well as trace gases such as sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, and methane. All of the above can chemically alter preexisting aerosols and impact the radiative properties of the atmosphere and underlying sea ice and snow. Previous studies have demonstrated that shipping emissions can enhance marine background levels of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN).
This project will make use of a unique state-of-the-art suite of in situ aerosol and trace gas measurements collected on a ship over an entire year in the central Arctic. The student will work on the detailed analysis (statistics and process understanding) of the different aerosol and trace gas measurements made during periods with strong influence from local ship emissions, and under various atmospheric conditions (e.g., atmospheric stability, radiation intensity, temperature). The potential effect that ship emissions have on aerosol climate-relevant properties (i.e., light absorption and scattering, and influence on the cloud condensation nuclei population) will also be assessed.
The student should have a great interest for atmospheric processes and data analysis, and should have good coding skills. This project also involves working with a large amount of data. If you are interested in this project or want to learn more about it, please contact Julia Schmale ([email protected]) or Benjamin Heutte ([email protected]).