ASEFI (Atmospheric Soot: Environmental Fate and Impact) 2006 Meeting
Carbonaceous soot in the atmosphere is a major concern with regards to its impact on health and the environment. Currently black carbon (BC) is considered one of the most important constituencies of atmospheric particles by every major environmental agency. A number of significant results have been obtained recently within the emission measurements; however, as there has been limited progress in the laboratory measurements of soot, a workshop “Atmospheric Soot: Environmental Fate and Impact” (ASEFI) was organized in Arcachon (France), 18-20 October 2006, under the supports of INTROP Programme and the French Ministry of Ecology, to elucidate the current problems and to develop ideas that can address these problems. Forty invited experts have discussed how to improve the quality of soot measurements in laboratory and field observations, to remove the lack of information on the physical, optical and chemical properties of soot with respect to their emission sources and interaction with environment. Participants represented the current understanding of soot/climate interactions on all levels, from physico-chemistry on soot surfaces to soot emission impact on induced cloudiness and radiative budget, in five thematic sessions on Soot measurements in global environment, Aircraft engine emission experiments, Water-soot interactions: CCN/ IN, Laboratory and theoretical studies and Chemistry of soot. Thematic discussion clarified “What is soot?” and defined the different types of soot of atmospheric and human health issues, namely diesel, aviation, wood combustion and biomass burning soots.
Working group discussions provided a clear definition of the current state and listed the problems that must be addressed: they concern to relevance of laboratory studies to atmospheric impact, connection of laboratory surrogates to soot in the atmosphere, development of models with predictive values, lack of reference particles for calibrations, quantification by calibration methods, sampling difficulties and artifacts, and finally, required accuracy not yet met for many applications. All they limit current ability to predict environmental effects of soot exhausts. The details of presentation and discussions are presented on website http://www.asefi2006.u-bordeaux.fr
Atmospheric Soot Network
Primary result of the meeting is the recommendation to form an international network, designated the Atmospheric Soot Network (ASN), whose participants would be researchers with experience in soot emissions, atmospheric measurements, and laboratory studies, and who have a mutual interest in sharing ideas and projects.
ASN mission
ASN can serve as an organization that can promote and coordinate a variety of activities that improve our capacity to understand the impact of soot on the environment. The following are some of the objectives that could be announced for the ASN:
1) to build a link between engine makers, field observers, laboratory researcher and climate modelers,
2) to elaborate the common approach for characterization of soot exhaust from engine and laboratory combustion sources,
3) to elaborate the common basis for studies of soot-related atmospheric processes,
4) to increase the common ability to use complementary techniques,
5) to produce common laboratory soot for atmospheric studies, to elaborate, test and recommend Reference Soot Materials,
6) to organize inter-laboratory comparisons to increase soot quality measurements in the atmosphere and progress in laboratory studies,
7) to remove the lack in the knowledge of physico-chemical properties of soot particles generated by industrial and residential emissions, vehicular and aircraft emission, domestic home heating, and biomass burning, and
8) to develop a comprehensive Soot Database of laboratory - characterized soots of natural and anthropogenic sources.
Conclusions of ASEFI 2006
All participants have supported the organization of the international Atmospheric Soot Network, between soot producers and soot experts in atmospheric measurements, modeling and laboratory studies, with the general purpose to have some real progress in the prediction of soot impact upon atmosphere.
The Scientific Committee members are O. Popovicheva, D. Baumgardner, K. Gierens, R. Miake-Lye, R. Niessner, M. Rossi, M. Petters, H. Puxbaum , J. Suzanne and E. Villenave (for their affiliations, see in http://www.asefi2006.u-bordeaux.fr/ ).
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