ARL News

Ammonia in the Environment – Scientific Meeting in DC

October 22, 2003

The Annual Technical Meeting of the National Atmospheric Deposition Program is taking place in Washington, DC, 20-21 October. Following this meeting, on October 22-24, ARL has organized a specialist meeting on Ammonia in the Environment. Leading experts from Europe will be in attendance, and a number of high-level US agency representatives will be speaking.

As time progresses, the importance of ammonia as a contributor to air pollution and to ecosystem enrichment is becoming increasingly apparent. Deposition rates of ammonia and the compounds it forms are not yet well measured. In fact, a trial study to evaluate new methodologies for measuring deposition rates of ammonia has just concluded, in Tampa, Florida. The ARL scientists who developed this new technology will be reporting on it at the Washington meeting.

Ammonia is a key contributor to the generation of particles in the air, and hence understanding of its behavior in the atmosphere is going to become critical as air quality forecasting activities move towards the prediction of particle concentrations in air.