The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.
This award will support a twenty-four month research fellowship by Dr. Monica Martinez-Aviles to work with Drs. Gregory Bodeker and Karin Kreher at National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) in Central Otago, New Zealand. Co-support for this project is provided by the Math and Physical Science?s Office of Multidisciplinary Activities.
The proposed project aims to better quantify the origin of bromine in the lower stratosphere and in particular the role that both natural and anthropogenically stimulated emissions of very short-lived bromine containing compounds from the ocean may play in the bromine budget of the lower stratosphere. First, to validate satellite-based measurements of tropospheric and stratospheric BrO (e.g. those made by GOME and SCIAMACHY), a long time series (2001 to present) of direct-sun and zenith-sky UV-visible spectroscopic measurements at Lauder, New Zealand, are analyzed using an optimal estimation retrieval technique. Then, to better understand the environmental factors (local macro algae type, sunlight, temperature, wind speed) that control emissions of BrO from the marine environment to the troposphere, measurements of BrO are made around the coastline of New Zealand using a portable MAX-DOAS spectrometer. Finally, to assess the impacts of anthropogenically enhanced emissions of bromine from planned commercial kelp farms on the stratospheric budget of bromine, and thereby on stratospheric ozone, multi-decadal simulations using a coupled chemistry-climate model with enhanced surface emissions of bromine are performed.
