Abstract

The land surface can affect air pollutants in at least five ways:

1. Trapping emissions to the atmosphere within a canopy (fumigation)

2. Producing swirls and eddies in the air that mix pollutants away from the ground (vertical mixing)

3. Slowing the horizontal wind and so reducing the rate of movement of pollutants away from a source (horizontal dilution)

4. Transfer of pollutants from the air to the surface (deposition)

5. Emitting volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that form ozone

The talk will discuss touch on each of the above effects, showing model results that illustrate when each effect can become dominant, when more than one effect operates to produce surprising results, and when limitations in our approaches to land-atmosphere interactions leaves us unable to address key questions. The talk will include a brief introduction to the newly formed Birmingham Institute of Forest Research, which aims to improve our understanding of forest dynamics, including interactions between forest and overlying air.