UCSD Awarded $400K Grant for Atmosphere Study

UC San Diego received a $400,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to study how organic compounds form in the atmosphere, the federal agency announced Thursday.

Overall, the EPA awarded over $4.3 million to 13 institutions for the research project, including UC Irvine. The agency will also contribute staff scientists to work on the study.

"The research to be performed by UC Irvine and UC San Diego is designed to  increase our understanding of how natural and man-made particles mix in the atmosphere," said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA's regional administrator for the Pacific Southwest. "The results will help our improve management of air quality and add critical data to climate change models."

The researchers will conduct laboratory and field studies to examine how man-made emissions of volatile organic compounds can combine in the atmosphere to create fine particulates known as aerosols—solid and liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere that affect the amount of radiation reaching the Earth, according to the EPA.

The agency said aerosols have been tied to health impacts in people, so they also play an important role in air quality.

-City News Service