The Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) in the remote Amazon Basin: overview of first results from ecosystem ecology, meteorology, trace gas, and aerosol measurements

Abstract

Abstract. The Amazon Basin plays key roles in the carbon and water cycles, climate change, atmospheric chemistry, and biodiversity. It already has been changed significantly by human activities, and more pervasive change is expected to occur in the next decades. It is therefore essential to establish long-term measurement sites that provide a baseline record of present-day climatic, biogeochemical, and atmospheric conditions and that will be operated over coming decades to monitor change in the Amazon region as human perturbations increase in the future. The Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) has been set up in a pristine rain forest region in the central Amazon Basin, about 150 km northeast of the city of Manaus. An ecological survey including a biodiversity assessment has been conducted in the forest region surrounding the site. Two 80 m towers have been operated at the site since 2012, and a 325 m tower is nearing completion in mid-2015. Measurements of micrometeorological and atmospheric chemical variables were initiated in 2012, and their range has continued to broaden over the last few years. The meteorological and micrometeorological measurements include temperature and wind profiles, precipitation, water and energy fluxes, turbulence components, soil temperature profiles and soil heat fluxes, radiation fluxes, and visibility. A tree has been instrumented to measure stem profiles of temperature, light intensity, and water content in cryptogamic covers. The trace gas measurements comprise continuous monitoring of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, and ozone at 5 to 8 different heights, complemented by a variety of additional species measured during intensive campaigns (e.g., VOC, NO, NO2, and OH reactivity). Aerosol optical, microphysical, and chemical measurements are made above the canopy as well as in the canopy space. They include light scattering and absorption, aerosol fluorescence, number and volume size distributions, chemical composition, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations, and hygroscopicity. Initial results from ecological, meteorological, and chemical studies at the ATTO site are presented in this paper.

Segregation in the Atmospheric Boundary Layer: The Case of OH – Isoprene

“…This inhomogeneity of land surface properties (and of canopy surface temperatures and surface sensible heat fluxes, ) is related to variations in buoyant production as well as inhomogeneous source distributions for isoprene, both of which have an impact on the variability of the isoprene flux and the mixing ratio (e.g., the variance) and, therefore, on for the isoprenereaction. Comparable to the study by Patton et al (2001), the modelled chemical reactions are for low conditions as found for example in the Amazonian region (e.g., Rohrer et al, 2014) -where one major sink for is isoprene (e.g., Andreae et al, 2015;Karl et al, 2007;Nölscher et al, 2015;Yáňez-Serrano et al, 2015).…”

“…The ATTO-IOP1 was conducted at the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (Andreae et al, 2015) (Martinez et al, 2010;Hens et al, 2014 on another cantilever balcony at 40 m along with instruments to measure radiation, isoprene, and water vapour. The balcony faced to the north-east, the direction of the prevailing wind.…”

Evaluation of regional background particulate matter concentration based on vertical distribution characteristics

“…Further details of CMB can be found in the relative literature (Watson et al, 1984(Watson et al, , 2002USEPA, 2004). The data set of chemical composition in the PM 10 samples during the measurement period and the source profiles reported in our previous works (Bi et al, 2007) were used in the CMB modelling.…”

“…A tall tower is commonly used in observation of boundary layer meteorological, micrometeorological and atmospheric chemical variables, e.g. vertical profile and fluxes (Heintzenberg et al, 2008(Heintzenberg et al, , 2013Brown et al, 2013;Andreae et al, 2015). The footprint concept is capable of linking observed data collected at the different height levels of the tower to spatial context.…”

Local Convection and Turbulence in the Amazonia Using Large Eddy Simulation Model

“…The Amazon region is the largest rainforest on the planet and it is currently a large focus of scientific research because of its influence on climate. As an example, there are several experiments taking place led by LBA (Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia) together with several countries, where amongst the various objectives is to understand better the interactions between forest and atmosphere Recently, new experiments, such as the ATTO (Amazon Tall Tower Observatory [1]), GoAmazon2014/15 (Green Ocean Amazon [2]) and ACRIDICON [3] have been installed.…”