Symposium: 'Nanotech
Beyond the Hype'

Goldstein

Most scientists believe that when smog ozone is taken up by the forests of the Sierra Nevada, it is mostly absorbed by trees and plants. But new research at UC Berkeley suggests a large proportion of the ozone is actually transformed by chemical reactions in the air with compounds emitted by the forest. The new findings, published online in April in Geophysical Research Letters, indicate that much of the ozone entering pine forests in the Sierra Nevada could be reacting with natural hydrocarbons emitted by plants. One outcome of this reaction is the formation or growth of aerosols. "We care about aerosols in the atmosphere because they can affect human health and visibility," said Allen Goldstein, Berkeley Lab researcher and associate professor of biogeochemistry at UC Berkeley's College of Natural Resources. Goldstein is principal investigator of the study. Full story.