Bert VERREYKEN

« Measurements and source attribution of volatile organic compounds in the tropical atmosphere »

Joint-PhD project between University of Ghent (Belgium) and Université de La Réunion (France)

Soutenance : Prévue 2021

Traces of oxygenated volatile organic compounds (OVOCs) in the atmosphere impact the atmospheric oxidative capacity and climate. However, large discrepancies in the OVOC budget still exists. The OCTAVE project aims to provide an improved assessment of the budget and role of OVOCs in tropical regions, and especially over oceans, relying on in situ measurements, satellite retrievals and modelling.

To do this, a high sensitivity proton transfer mass spectrometer (PTR-MS) instrument was deployed at the Maïdo observatory in October 2017 to take a 2 year in situ dataset of OVOC concentrations in the atmosphere. It is foreseen to study the variabilities and correlations in the dataset both statistically and by using the origins of air masses arriving at the observatory. The air mass origins will be determined using back-trajectory calculations by the FLEXPART-AROME Lagrangian particle dispersion model which is being developed as part of the project.