OPS 2-13
Dust deposition measurements at NEON: A transect across the Rocky Mountains
The overarching goal of National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is to enable understanding and forecasting of climate change, land use change, and invasive species on continental-scale ecology by providing infrastructure to support research in these areas. One key component to NEON observations is the dry/dust deposition measurement, which will enhance our understanding of particle (dust) formation transport, their chemical inputs (deposition), and their impacts on the ecosystem-level processes and feedback mechanisms (i.e., biogeochemistry, ecohydrology, energy balance, productivity and biodiversity), particularly at high altitude mountain areas. Given its important ecological impacts, the long-term estimates (seasonal-to-annual-to decadal scales) of the deposition and transport of the dust regionally are of great interest. However, long-term observations at large spatial scales present many challenges. These include collecting representative particulate samples for chemistry analysis, continually measuring the size fraction for dry deposition estimates, and operational constraints (COTS products, low maintenance, etc.). Thus, dust samplers for NEON’s dry deposition measurements are needed not only to meet these challenges, but also to ensure representative dust samples are continually collected in a standardized, and low maintenance manner.
Results/Conclusions
Two different types of dust samplers will be deployed at NEON sites across Rocky Mountains. The first dust sampler is a mass flow-controlled high volume air sampler, which is commonly used to monitor Total Suspended Particulates (TSP) in the atmosphere and to analyze the chemical inputs to ecosystems. TSP samples will be collected on micro-quartz fiber filters, which will be archived and made available to the science community upon request. The second dust sampler is a laser photometric aerosol monitor with a special NEON inlet and flow system design. This sampler simultaneously measures size-segregated mass fraction concentrations of particulate matter (PM), i.e., PM1, PM2.5, PM10, and TSP particles at a near real-time sampling rate. These observations will be used in conjunction with co-located 3D wind measurements to quantify the deposition velocity of the particulates from the atmosphere to the ground surface. This poster will highlight the network planning for dry deposition measurements, the instrumentation design, as well as the archive strategy for the lifetime of NEON.