Facilities
ATTO
Amazon Tall Tower Observatory
This research site is located in the middle of the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil, about 150 km north of Manaus. It is run together by scientists from Germany and Brazil. Its aim is to continuously record meteorological, chemical and biological data, such as the concentration of greenhouses gases. With the help of these data, we hope to gain insights into how the Amazon interacts with the overlying atmosphere and the soil below. Because this region is of such importance to the global climate, it is vital to get a better understanding of these complex processes. Only then will we be able to make more accurate climate predictions.
Official website: https://www.attoproject.org/
Coordination:
Max Planck Institute for Chemistry; Mainz, Germany
Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia (INPA); Manaus, Brazil
Universidade do Estado do Amazonas (UEA); Manaus, Brazil
Research objectives:
To collect data on the influence of the vast, largely untouched rainforest on the climate, which will allow us to:
Understand sources and sinks of greenhouse gases such as CO2, methane and N2O
Investigate the formation of aerosols which is important for cloud formation
Investigate the transport processes of air masses that take place over several hundred kilometers
All information will lead to models to make better statements about the atmosphere and our climate, especially with the point of view of Global Climate Change. At the same time ATTO data can also be used as a basis for environmental regulations for sustainable development of the Amazon region.
Forest surrounding the ATTO site (credit: Jorge Saturno)
Location of the ATTO site
LFA Mobile Unit
The LFA mobile unit for air pollution monitoring is a trailer equipped with state-of-the-art instruments to characterize physical and chemical properties of aerosols and trace gases. The trailer can be transported to urban or rural sites, characterizing atmospheric conditions in places where there is absent or insufficient air quality monitoring. In the last years, the LFA trailer operated in urban sites such as Diadema, Campinas and São Paulo, where the linkages between aerosol chemical and physical properties were investigated. The trailer has also been deployed in the Morro Grande forest reservation near São Paulo city, as part of the Biomasp+ experiment.
Related works and projects
IFUSP Lab
Our indoor laboratory is situated in the Novo Milênio building, within the Physics Institute of the University of São Paulo. This well-equipped facility features state-of-the-art instruments designed for the precise measurement of chemical properties in aerosol samples. The instruments at our disposal enable the measurement of concentrations of Organic and Elemental Carbon (OC-EC), as well as the assessment of reflectance and elemental composition through X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy of aerosols previously collected on filters. This suite of instruments enables us to provide a detailed characterization of the atmospheric composition at specific times and locations, enhancing our understanding of the aerosol content in the air.