The goal of the internship is for an undergraduate student to participate in a ground-based atmospheric chemistry field campaign in tandem with an airborne field campaign. The student will aid in measurements of ammonia and methane from a mobile laboratory. Ammonia contributes to fine particle formation and nitrogen deposition; however, less is known about the emissions, abundances, and loss processes for this species than other anthropogenic pollutants. Though there have been large research strides with respect to ammonia over the last several years, a recent analysis of global satellite observations implies that we should prioritize quantifying ammonia emissions from large point sources, including cattle and dairy feedlots. The student will gain experience with sophisticated atmospheric chemistry instrumentation and data interpretation in this context. The student will play active roles in the fieldwork, and they will perform preliminary data analysis. They will also work on a joint effort between the CSU Department of Atmospheric Sciences and CSU Extension to reach out to the agricultural community regarding the field campaign.
The student will deploy ammonia and methane measurements (Picarro model G2508 analyzer) in a mobile lab. We will use a mobile laboratory in several strategic ways to augment the aircraft sampling. We will attempt downwind transects of individual sources (i.e. cattle and dairy feedlots) further downwind than feasible with the aircraft. We will compare ratios of ammonia to methane sampled from the aircraft and the mobile lab. Using the change in this ratio as a function of the downwind distance, we should
