This week, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) held a hybrid meeting to launch and celebrate the newly established Air Quality and Community Health Research (ACRS) Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), led jointly by NOAA, EPA and NIEHS and co-chaired by CPO’s Atmospheric Chemistry, Carbon Cycle and Climate (AC4) Program Manager Monika Kopacz.

AC4-supported research team provides an essential evaluation of laser-based analyzing instruments needed to investigate sources and impacts of atmospheric methane emissions in cities affected by COVID-19 shutdowns.

Nitrogen reacts with oxygen and other chemical compounds to form atmospheric oxides, which significantly impact the chemical composition of our atmosphere, human and environmental health, and broader climate processes. These gases can be produced by a range of natural and anthropogenic sources including fossil fuel combustion and wildfires. The atmospheric chemistry research community has developed new methods to track the emission sources of these gases and their key chemical reactions by analyzing the stable isotopes of nitrogen and oxygen in the gas compounds. However, there is a lack of a well-established method to simultaneously differentiate and quantify the concentration and isotopic composition of multiple groups of nitrogen oxides.

The newly approved Air Quality and Community Health Research Subcommittee (ACRS) under the OSTP will be led jointly by NOAA, EPA and NIEHS and co-chaired by CPO’s Atmospheric Chemistry, Carbon Cycle and Climate (AC4) Program Manager Monika Kopacz.

An AC4-funded research study finds model bias related to aerosol concentrations compared to global aircraft field data, and corrects the bias using improved precipitation representation.