NASA has funded SWAC’s own Dylan Millet and his team of collaborators from University of Wisconsin, Oregon State University, and UC Santa Barbara for a four year project titled "Marine Organics and their Atmospheric Impacts (MORAI)". This funding comes through the Interdisciplinary Research in Earth Science Program out of the out of NASA's Earth Sciences Division.
The research group will investigate ocean-atmospheric exchange through new measurements and modeling to better understand the role of air-sea exchange on atmospheric composition and chemistry. They will be focusing on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and their critical role in the formation and growth of marine aerosol particles and contribute to cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) abundance and the oxidizing capacity of the marine atmosphere.
Work will combine state-of-science remote sensing, mass spectrometry, marine biogeochemistry, and global atmospheric modeling to quantify the drivers, magnitudes, and impacts of ocean-air VOC fluxes in a more comprehensive way than has been previously achieved.