BOREAS
As part of the BOREAS
project in 1994, we investigated the environmental
controls on the production
of isoprene emissions from a monoculture aspen forest in Prince Albert
National Park, Saskatchewan, Canada. We were one of the first
research groups to develop models to estimate the seasonal isoprene
emissions from forest ecosystems. Also, the field
investigatations on seasonal isoprene emissions permitted us to learn
how the antecendent environmental conditions impact the isoprene
production from the forest ecosystems. An additional research goal
was to learn the amount of photosynthetic carbon entering the
atmosphere
in the form of isoprene. Working with ecologists and atmospheric
chemists,
new knowledge has been generated concerning the contribution of
isoprene
oxidation on the formation of tropospheric ozone and peroxy radicals in
remote, rural environments with low (< 1 ppb) nitrogen oxide levels.
Also,
canopy models have been developed and applied to estimate seasonal
isoprene emissions from forest ecosystems.