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Researchers to Study Gulf Spill Air Pollution to Understand Urban Air Quality
The NOAA-led team showed that although the lightest compounds in the oil evaporated within hours, it was the heavier compounds, which took longer to evaporate, that contributed most to the formation of air pollution particles downwind. Because those compounds are also emitted by vehicles and other combustion sources, the discovery is important for understanding air quality in general, not only near oil spills.
"We were able to confirm a theory that a major portion of particulate air pollution is formed from chemicals that few are measuring, and which we once assumed were not abundant enough to cause harm," said Joost de Gouw
NOAA sent a research aircraft to the Gulf region in June 2010 to help other agencies assess pollutant levels in the air. The P-3 was already loaded with instruments designed to measure many types of air pollution particles - including "organic aerosol" - and the chemicals from which they are formed in air.
Air pollution particles can damage people's lung and heart function, and they also affect climate, with some aerosol, including OA, partially offsetting the warming from greenhouse gases by reflecting incoming sunlight or changing cloud properties, and other aerosol amplifying warming by increasing the amount of sunlight absorbed in the atmosphere.
De Gouw said he and his colleagues knew where to expect OA particles downwind from the oil spill based on conventional understanding: OA should form when the most lightweight, or "volatile," components of surface oil evaporate, undergo chemical reactions, and condense onto existing airborne particles.
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