The School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Presents Dr. Kyle Gorkowski, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Exploring the outsized role humidity has on aerosol particles: Aerosol Optical Tweezers and Wildfires:

Aerosol particles have short and long term effects of global importance. However, there are still challenges in accurately representing aerosol processes in regional and global simulations. In this seminar, I will discuss how accounting for humidity dependence of organic aerosol is essential for predicting liquid-particle morphology, aerosol mass concentrations, cloud condensation nuclei, and optical absorption enhancements. I will highlight experiments using the Aerosol Optical Tweezers to inform on liquid-particle morphology and phase-separation. Those experiments then feed into the Binary Activity Thermodynamics model, which accounts for co-condensation and liquid-liquid phase separation of organic species in GEOS-Chem. Lastly, I’ll cover my emerging research into the humidity dependence of aerosol absorption, which ties the previous topics to aerosol radiative transfer and global climate simulations.