Science Questions

The SOS community has articulated a set of six policy- relevant science questions to serve as a focus for SOS research:

  1. By what specific aerosol measurement methods can SOS achieve maximally beneficial characterization of aerosols in both urban and rural areas of the SOS region?
  2. What are the linkages (similarities and differences) between the chemical, biological, and meteorological processes that govern formation and accumulation of ozone and fine particulate aerosols?
  3. What is the relative efficiency of production of ozone and fine particulate aerosol in urban plumes compared to that in power-plant plumes?
  4. In what ways are the rates and efficiencies of ozone and fine particulate aerosol production and accumulation different in large urban areas compared to small urban areas – especially in cases where an air mass spends an extended period traversing a very large urban area?
  5. How do nighttime meteorological and chemical processes influence the rates, efficiencies, and areal extent of ozone and fine particulate aerosol formation and accumulation?
  6. What meteorological and chemical factors determine the regionality and/or locality of ozone and fine particulate aerosol accumulation events? In particular:
    1. How do the processes that govern ozone accumulation in isolated urban areas surrounded by high-isoprene-emitting forests differ from those in urban areas in which urban plumes overlap from one urban or non-forested area to another?
    2. How important are urban heat-island phenomena in determining the regionality and or locality of ozone and fine particulate aerosol formation and accumulation processes?