Student Awards

Upcoming Seminar

Sources and Characteristics of Particulate Matter in an Urban/Agricultural/Desert Setting

Wed, Jan 27, 2021

270 Seminar

Speaker: Roya Bahreini

Institution: UC Riverside

Abstract:

The Imperial Valley is the second largest agricultural region in California and is home to the Salton Sea, the largest endorheic lake west of the Mississippi. The Imperial County communities surrounding the Salton Sea suffer from extreme levels of air pollution, especially aerosol particles. This has led to negative health outcomes and low socioeconomic factors. Due to the high input of agricultural runoffs in the lake over the past decades, its salinity has been increasing to twice as much as ocean water. Additionally, concentrations of selenium (Se) in the water and sediments are high and increasing. Recent water management practices in the region have led to a sharp decrease in the Salton Sea water levels, worsening its water quality, and exposing the playa along its shores. Primary dust emissions from the recently exposed playa mobilize trace pollutants to the atmosphere and contribute to the region’s PM2.5 and PM10 (aerosols ≤ 2.5 mm and 10 mm in aerodynamic size, respectively) concentrations.

In this talk, I present results on mineral and ionic composition of suspended and depositing aerosols in Imperial Valley to determine sources of airborne dust particles and quantify the influence of the exposed playa vs. the local arid lands in controlling dust emissions. I will also examine the spatial and temporal patterns of aerosol components using data from passive samplers deployed at five sites, spanning from the remote/background to urban and shoreline locations in IV. Enrichment factors and positive matrix factorization (PMF) results were used to identify and to estimate the contribution of various dust sources in the region. The PMF resolved the data from these samplers with seven factors, six of which have anthropogenic influences, contributing to 55-80% of the collected aerosol mass. Additionally, we determined that playa emissions were most intense during late spring/early summer. Minerology of the collected samples during an intense dust event suggest that evaporite minerals of playa, particularly magnesium and sulfate, are important for playa emissivity. In our first study at the Salton Sea, we observed strong seasonal variations in Se concentrations with higher enrichments on fine aerosols, suggesting a seasonal cycle of Se volatilization from the playa and/or the sediments and formation of secondary aerosols through condensation. I will conclude the seminar with results from our laboratory-based experiments examining the potential for atmospheric oxidation of organoselenium compounds to contribute to Se-enrichment in ambient aerosols.

Zoom: https://ucla.zoom.us/j/98770296517

Student Awards

2019 Student Award Winners

Jacob A. Bjerknes Award		Morris Neiburger Award	Turco Exceptional Research Publication Award	Brian Lance Bosart Award	Paul M. Furukawa Memorial Fellowship

David H. Gonzalez	Aviv Solodoch	Min (Danny) Leung	Xin An, Ken Zhao, Tomas Chor	Zoe Pierrat	Sarah Johnson

Jacob A. Bjerknes Award

2008 — Qing Yue and Shasha Zou

2009 — Wen Li

2010 — Lunjin Chen and Junhong Liang

2011 — Malamati Gkioulidou, Sarah B. Kapnick, and Dmitriy Subbotin

2012 — Hwa Jin Kim and Peng Wang

2013 — Thomas Weber

2014 — Yizhe (Peggy) Bu

2015 — Mei Gao and Ying Zou

2016 — Cenlin He

2017 — Kathleen Anne Schiro and Wu Sun

2018 — Daniel Dauhajre, Yi Hung Kuo, and Dilhara Ranasinghe

2019 — David H. Gonzalez and Aviv Solodoch

Morris Neiburger Award

2008 — Michael Young

2009 — Kathryn Shontz

2010 — Huihui Yuan

2011 — Tersi Arias and Travis Wilson

2012 — Marshal Abramczyk

2013 — Seth Saslo and Kathleen Schiro

2014 — Neil Berg, Daniel Russell, and Baird Langenbrunner

2015 — Beatriz Gallardo and Marla Schwartz

2016 — David H. Gonzalez

2017 — Sydnie Lemieux and Francis A. Turney

2018 — Kenyon Chow

2019 — Min (Danny) Leung

Brian Lance Bosart Award

2008 — Calvin Liang and Aloisia Nuijens

2009 — Gregory Derevianko

2010 — Sarah B. Kapnick

2011 — Aaron Ferrel

2012 — Baird Langenbrunner

2013 — Kathleen Schiro

2014 — Daniel Dauhajre

2015 — Maria A. Schwartz

2016 — Beatriz Gallardo and Dilhara Ranasinghe

2017 — David H. Gonzalez

2018 — Jordyn Moscoso

2019 — Zoe Pierrat

Paul M. Furukawa Memorial Fellowship

2018 — Hung-I Lee

2019 — Sarah Johnson

Turco Exceptional Research Publication Award

2018 — Katie Tuite for her publication "Iodine catalyzed ozone destruction at the Texas coast and Gulf of Mexico" in Geophysical Research Letters, and Fiaz Ahmed for his publiction "Reverse engineering the tropical precipitation-buoyancy relationship" in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences

2019 — Xin An for his publication on the unified view of nonlinear wave structures associated with whistler-mode chorus.

Tomas Chor for his publication on a turbulence velocity scale for predicting the fate of buoyant materials in the oceanic mixed layer.

Ken Zhao for a rigorous and detailed exploration of the dynamics of ocean circulation within ice shelf cavities.

54°

Chance of Showers

2019 Student Award Winners

Jacob A. Bjerknes Award

Morris Neiburger Award

Turco Exceptional Research Publication Award

Brian Lance Bosart Award

Paul M. Furukawa Memorial Fellowship

Jacob A. Bjerknes Award

Morris Neiburger Award

Brian Lance Bosart Award

Paul M. Furukawa Memorial Fellowship

Turco Exceptional Research Publication Award

Campus Address

Mailing Address

Contact Information

Campus Address	Mailing Address	Contact Information
520 Portola Plaza	UCLA Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences	Students Services Office: (310) 825-1954
Math Sciences Building 7127	Box 951565	Email: studentinfo@atmos.ucla.edu
Los Angeles, CA 90095	Los Angeles, CA 90095-1565	Phone: (310) 825-1217