News from the project

This year's ATTO workshop will take place in at INPA in Manaus October 2 - 4, 2024. It will be preceded by a mini-workshop on data (management) on October 1st.

The CloudRoots team would like to invite you to participate in the PhD Skills Course, which will be held from August 5 to 7, 2024, at INPA, Manaus. The aim of the course is to improve students' skills through different steps of their research.

Direct measurements of OH radicals are rare and difficult to achieve. However, since they react with BVOCs, Ringsdorf et al. inferred them from isoprene measurements at ATTO. To do so, they applied a technique called ‘Dynamical Time Warping’ from the field of speech recognition. Akima Ringsdorf et al. published the study “Inferring the diurnal variability of OH radical concentrations over the Amazon from BVOC measurements” Open Access in Nature Scientific Reports.

Checker Tobi embarks on a second adventure for the big screen in Germany. "Checker Tobi und die Reise zu den fliegenden Flüssen" takes him to ATTO! The movie is in theaters now in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and will be part of the 2024 Schulkinowochen.

Eliane Gomes Alves and her colleagues measured isoprene emissions at the ATTO 80-meter tower across three years to better understand how these emissions vary seasonally and under extreme climatic conditions like El Niño events. They also looked into which biological and environmental factors regulate the emission of isoprene to the atmosphere.

In a new study, Anne Mendonça, Cléo Quaresma, Daniel Marra and their co-authors analyzed different turbulence regimes at the ZF2 site as part of the ATTO-INVENTA project. They also investigated how turbulence is connected to the occurrence of downdrafts and extreme wind gusts, that might lead to tree mortality.

The summer school Amazon Forests and Global Change is part of the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) project, which investigates forest functioning, biodiversity, forest-atmosphere interactions, and atmospheric chemistry and physics. Its objective is to offer scientific theory and methods to investigate forest functioning, biodiversity, and forest-atmosphere interactions in the context of global change, and takes place at INPA, Manaus and at ATTO Sep 28 – Oct 10, 2023.

the ATTO workshop 2023 will take place in Manaus September 25 - 27, registration is open until August 15.

More soot particles enter the central Amazon rainforest from brush fires in Africa than from regional fires at certain times.

In a new study, Luca Mortarini and his colleagues introduce a novel approach to the study of the roughness sublayer, using a cospectral budget model. Its originality lies in not considering the mixing layer analogy to parameterize the turbulence statistics. In addition, it relates them to the different scales of the wind velocity spectrum without making any assumption on the property of the flow.

In a new study, Denis Leppla, Thorsten Hoffmann and their colleagues looked at pinic acid and its chiral forms. Pinic acid forms in the atmosphere through SAO formation from α-pinenes. The team wanted to find out how the chemical reactions in the atmosphere affect the chirality of its product pinic acid.

The future of the Amazon rainforest and its influence on the global climate were the focus of the visit by Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Steffi Lemke to the ATTO - Amazon Tall Tower Observatory in Brazil. The President and the Federal Minister for the Environment visited the German-Brazilian research station, in which the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz participate, on January 2nd.

This October, scientists from the ATTO project met in Manaus, Brazil for our project workshop. It clearly confirmed that ATTO has developed into a research site with globally unique capabilities – despite the pandemic and challenging field conditions. It was the first in-person workshop since the start of the pandemic and many project members had met in person for the first time since early 2020. For this reason alone, the spirits were high.

The team around Cybelli Barbosa analyzed and studied the distribution patterns of giant bioaerosol particles in the Amazon. For this, they looked at over 500 000 individual particles from five years and eight intensive campaigns and made some exciting discoveries, now published in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science.

Bioaerosols influence the dynamics of the biosphere underneath. In a new study, Sylvia Mota de Oliveira and her colleagues used the ATTO site to collect air samples at 300 m above the forest. Then, they used DNA sequencing to analyze the biological components that were present and figure out what species of plant or fungi they belong to. One of the most striking new insights is the stark contrast between the species composition in the near-pristine Amazonian atmosphere compared to urban areas.

Eiky Moraes, Cléo Dias-Júnior and their colleagues wanted to find out if the local topography at the ATTO influenced the atmospheric movements. In particular, they were interested in the effect that topography has on the formation of gravity waves. Comparing two simulations, one with and one without topography, revealed some important differences in the dynamics and chemistry of the atmosphere.

We are pleased to inform all ATTO researchers that this year, we hold our annual workshop again in person this year. Like in 2019, the INPA in Manaus will be our host. The workshop will take place October 3 - 6, with the option for an overnight excursion to ATTO the following day. Registration is now open.

Only when the air inside of the forest canopy mixes with the air above can there be exchange. The physical movement of the air, its turbulence, determine how well these two layers of air, the one inside the forest canopy and the one above, mix. Daniela Cava, Luca Mortarini, Cleo Quaresma and their colleagues set out to address some of these questions with two new studies that they conducted at ATTO. They wanted to define the different regimes of atmospheric turbulence or stability (Part 1) and describe the spatial and temporal scales of turbulent structures (Part 2).

BVOC emissions in the Amazon have been studied for decades, but we still don’t fully understand when and under what conditions tree species or even individual trees emit more or fewer isoprenoids. To address this, Eliane Gomes Alves and her colleagues measured isoprenoid emission capacities of three Amazonian hyperdominant tree species.

In a new study, Marco A. Franco and his colleagues analyzed when and under what conditions aerosols grow to a size relevant for cloud formation. Such growth events are relatively rare in the Amazon rainforest and follow and pronounced diurnal and seasonal cycles. The majority take place during the daytime, and during the wet season. But the team also discovered a few remarkable exceptions.

Rio de Janeiro’s science museum, the Museu do Amanhã (Museum of tomorrow) currently presents a special exhibition on the Amazon. Titled “Fruturos - Tempos Amazônicos”. The exhibition will be open to visitors until June 12, 2022, and includes an immersive ATTO experience.

The Brazilian Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation Marcos Pontes, took ambassadors to see MCTI projects in the Amazon and announces about R$ 90 million investment in the region. It will be used to build 50 modern laboratories, improve the infrastructure of the ATTO tower and pay for research grants to study the Amazon rainforest via a CNPq call.

It is long known that aerosols, directly and indirectly, affect clouds and precipitation. But very few studies have focused on the opposite: the question of how clouds modify aerosol properties. Therefore, Luiz Machado and his colleagues looked into this process at ATTO. Specifically, they studied how weather events influenced the size distribution of aerosol particles.

Mosses and lichen appear to play a previously overlooked but important role in the atmospheric chemistry of tropical rainforests. A new study from Achim Edtbauer and colleagues shows that such cryptogams emit highly reactive and particle-forming compounds (BVOCs) that are important for air quality, climate, and ecosystem processes.

High-quality atmospheric CO2 measurements are sparse across the Amazon rainforest. Yet they are important to better understand the variability of sources and sinks of CO2. And indeed, one of the reasons ATTO was built was to obtain long-term measurements in such a critical region. Santiago Botía and his colleagues now published the first 6 years of continuous, high-precision measurements of atmospheric CO2 at ATTO.

On Nov 3rd at 3 pm the Embassy of Brazil in Berlin and the ATTO project host a public hybrid event as part of the Berlin Science Week. Several project members will share insights into our research in the Amazon rainforest.

The Amazon rain forest plays a major role in global hydrological cycling. Biogenic aerosols, such as pollen, fungi, and spores likely influence the formation of clouds and precipitation. However, there are many different types of bioaerosols. The particles vary considerably in size, morphology, mixing state, as well as behavior like hygroscopicity (how much particles attract water) and metabolic activity. Therefore, it is likely that not only the amount of bioaerosols affects the hydrological cycle, but also the types of aerosols present.

Polari Corrêa and his co-authors analyzed the atmospheric dynamics in and above the forest canopy during one particular night at ATTO. Those conditions changed throughout the night. Turbulence was followed by the formation of a gravity wave and a low-level jet. It was likely formed due to the breeze from the Uatumã River and the hilly terrain. The study highlights the complex dynamics and mechanisms in the atmosphere above a dense forest.

Dear ATTO researchers, please save the week of October 4 -8, 2021 for the ATTO workshop. We will meet virtually over 3-5 half days (Brazilian mornings/German afternoons). The focus of the workshop will be on poster presentations and discussion groups.

The newsletter for June 2021 is here! The current issue includes summaries for lots of new publications, information about our new ATTO seminar and tools and resources for the project members, as well as many of our regular formats.

Bioaerosols may act as cloud condensation nuclei and ice nuclei, thereby influencing the formation of clouds and precipitation. But so far there is less knowledge about the ice nucleation activity of each bioaerosol group and atmospheric models hitherto have not differentiated between them. Patade et al. created a new empirical parameterization for five groups of bioaerosols, based on analysis of the characteristics of bioaerosols at ATTO: fungal spores, bacteria, pollen, plant/animal/viral detritus, and algae. This makes it possible for any cloud model to access the role of an individual group of bioaerosols in altering cloud properties and precipitation formation.

Ramsay et al. developed a new model to assess nitrogen exchange between atmosphere and biosphere based on observations at ATTO. This model includes parameters controlling both nitrogen deposition and emissions in tropical forests.

A new study shows that tree growth of Nectandra amazonum (Lauraceae) in the Central Amazonian floodplains does not respond to the annual long-term flooding but to variation of minimum temperature and evapotranspiration.

Biogenic volatile organic compounds remove OH from the atmosphere through chemical reactions, which affects processes such as cloud formation. In a new study, Pfannerstill et al. reveal the important contributions of previously not-considered BVOCs species and underestimated OVOCs to the total OH reactivity.

The next newsletter is here! The February 2021 issue includes summaries for lots of new publications, some info about the upcoming virtual EGU and many of our regular formats.

Episode 5 of the new five-part series from the BBC and David Attenborough called “A Perfect Planet” includes scenes filmed at ATTO. It is currently airing on BBC 1 in the UK, on ZDF in Germany and on Discovery+ in

Although located in the tropics, the Amazon sporadically experiences incursions of cold waves called friagem events. They significantly impact the weather patterns during the time they occur, causing for example a temperature drop and increased cloudiness. Guilherme Camarinha-Neto and his colleagues now found that they also affect atmospheric chemistry.

The majority of global precipitation is formed through the pathway of ice nucleation, but we’re facing large knowledge gaps that include the distribution, seasonal variations and sources of ice-nucleating particles. To fill some of those knowledge gaps, Jann Schrod and his co-authors produced a record of long-term measurements of INPs. They collected data for nearly two years at four different locations. One of those sites was ATTO.

Felipe Souza, Price Mathai and their co-authors published a new study analyzing the diverse bacterial population in the Amazonian atmosphere. The composition varied mainly with seasonal changes in temperature, relative humidity, and precipitation. On the other hand, they did not detect significant differences between the ground and canopy levels. They also identified bacterial species that participate in the nitrogen cycle.

Ramsay et al. measured inorganic trace gases such as ammonia and nitric acid and aerosols in the dry season at ATTO. They are to serve as baseline values for their concentration and fluxes in the atmosphere and are a first step in deciphering exchange processes of inorganic trace gases between the Amazon rainforest and the atmosphere.

Soot and other aerosols from biomass burning can influence regional and global weather and climate. Lixia Liu and her colleagues studied how this affects the Amazon Basin during the dry season. While there are many different interactions between biomass burning aerosols and climate, they found that they overall lead to fewer and weaker rain events in the Amazon rainforest.

A new study by Löbs et al. in Biogeosciences documents the microclimatic conditions for tropical mosses as a baseline for studies on their overall relevance on biogeochemical cycling. They found that water and light are overall the most important requirements for them to become photosynthetically active. However, their habitat determines which of the two plays the bigger role.

We are happy to announce that we will once again convene a session on Amazon Rainforest research at the EGU General Assembly 2021. The session is titled “The Amazon – a biome of global significance in transition”. Just in time for the call for abstracts, the EGU has announced, that the General Assembly 2021, traditionally held each spring in Vienna, Austria, will instead take place entirely online once more.

Der Newsletter September 2020 enthält neue Publikationen, Informationen darüber, wie wir Ihnen helfen, Ihre Arbeit zu bewerben, Team-Updates und mehr.

Nora Zannoni and her colleagues measured BVOC emissions at the ATTO tall tower in several heights. Specifically, they looked at one particular BVOC called α-pinene. They found that chiral BOVs at ATTO are neither equally abundant nor is the ratio of the two forms constant over time, season, or height. Surprisingly, they also discovered that termites might be a previously unknown source for BVOCs.

Chamecki and his co-authors analyzed if the gentle topography underneath the Amazon rainforest impacts atmospheric turbulence. They published their results Open Access in the Journal of the Atmospheric Science.

This year, we are celebrating the anniversaries of two milestones at ATTO. Our tall tower is celebrating its fifth birthday tomorrow. On 15 August 2015, it was officially inaugurated. However, measurements at the station already started in August 2010 on two smaller towers. Since then, the observatory has continued to grow. Now more than 200 scientists worldwide participate in this interdisciplinary project on climate research in the Amazon.

AGU Fall Meeting 2020 meeting will be held virtually during the original 7-11 December dates. We want to draw your attention to one session in particular: Tropical forests under a changing environment. Abstract submission deadline is 29 July.

Two Amazonian local activists Natalina do Carmo and Milena Raquel Tupinambá, visited ATTO last year. Brazilian filmmaker Barbara Marcel went with them to capture the exchange between the scientists, who study the forest, and the communities who call the forest their home. You can now see what she discovered in a video installation called “Ciné-Cipó - Cine Liana” in the virtual exhibition "Critical Zones - Observatories for Earthly Politics" by the ZKM (Zentrum für Kunst und Medien) Karlsruhe.

Recently we mentioned that drowned trees along the Uatumã River a likely the cause for enhanced methane emissions measured at ATTO. Now Angélica Resende and her co-authors investigated how changes in flooding regimes impact tree mortality in floodplains. They compared two sites in the Amazon basin. Along the Jaú River, the floodplain environment is still largely undisturbed. Along the Uatumã near ATTO, on the other hand, the flooding regime has been altered by the implementation of the Balbina hydroelectric plant further upstream.

Santiago Botía and his co-authors analyzed methane in the atmosphere at ATTO. Over the course of five years, they measured methane along with other properties, such as wind speed, wind direction and the stratification of the atmosphere. They noticed frequent pulses of methane emissions during the night, but only under certain conditions. Surprisingly, these nighttime events mostly occurred in the months of July to September – the dry season in the Amazon. Botía et al published the study Open Access in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Issue 20: Understanding nighttime methane signals at the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO).

When forests burn those fires produce a lot of smoke. And that smoke usually contains soot, also called “black carbon”. Black carbon particles are aerosols that absorb radiation and as such can warm the Earth’s atmosphere and climate. But we still have much to learn about aerosols, their properties, and distribution in the atmosphere. One of those things is the question of how black carbon emitted from biomass burning in Africa (i.e. forests, grasslands, savannas etc.) is transported across the Atlantic and into the Amazon basin, and what role it plays there. Bruna Holanda and her co-authors tackled this in their new study published in ACP.

We have minimized our field activities at ATTO due to COVID-19 since last week. Researchers will not travel to ATTO to collect samples or make measurements until further notice. For now, a small core team will continue taking care of our long-term measurements.

The April newsletter includes a few important announcements, including one about the plans for this year's ATTO workshop! All regular formats, such as New Publications and Meet the Team are back of course.

The EGU is officially announcing the cancellation of the physical EGU General Assembly 2020 in Vienna, Austria. Instead "Sharing Geoscience Online" will allow abstract authors to share presentation materials and open these for live discussion as well as participate in a selection of online networking events. We are also planning additional activities that will extend into the rest of the year and will provide more information about all of these events in the coming weeks.

We have recently taken a big step to further expand our research with the INVENTA/ATTO project to study. Led by Daniel Marra and Susan Trumbore, we want to investigate wind-tree interactions in the Amazon. Our goal is to integrate research on tree architecture and bio-mechanics with atmospheric and biogeochemical processes.

You may have noticed that the front page of our website got a new look recently. This is because in addition to project news, we now also have a blog! It is called "Voices from the Amazon", and here you will hear directly from our ATTO team. You can find it right below the "News section" on the front page. We are kicking things off with a very special post for today's Day for Woman and Girls in Science.

Fungal spore emissions are an important contributor to biogenic aerosols, but we have yet to understand under what conditions fungi release their spores. Nina Löbs and co-authors developed a new technique to measure emissions from single organisms and tested this out at ATTO and with controlled lab experiments. They published their results in the Open Access Journal Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.

Convective storms often occur in the tropics and have the potential to disturb the lower part of the atmosphere. They might even improve the venting of trace gases out of the forest canopy into the atmosphere above. To better understand these processes, Maurício Oliveira and co-authors used the infrastructure at ATTO to study storm outflows during nighttime. They published the results in a new paper in the Open Access Journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

The fourth newsletter is here! Get all the latest updates from the ATTO project, such as new publications, upcoming conferences, and a media digest.

Again this year, we will be present at the AGU Fall Meeting 2019 with some interesting presentations that cover a range of topics! If you are in San Francisco next week, you can learn out more about the latest Amazon research from ATTO make sure to put the following items on your schedule:

We are once again inviting you to bring the Amazon rainforest, or rather your Amazon research to the EGU General Assembly 2020! We are convening the session “Amazon forest – a natural laboratory of global significance” – a place for a vivid and scientifically fruitful exchange between many researchers from many groups and projects on the Amazon forests – including ATTO.

In a new study, Nathan Gonçalves and co-authors now wanted to find out if extreme climate events such as droughts influence leaf flushing, and thereby the average leaf age and photosynthetic capacity of the forest, and if is it possible to monitor more subtle changes associated with extreme events (compared to season changes) with satellites?

In a new study, Dr. Haijie Tong and co-authors studied a subset of PM2.5, the so-called highly oxygenated molecules (HOMs) and its relationship with radical yield and aerosol oxidative potential. They analyzed fine particulate matter in the air in multiple locations. This including the highly polluted megacity Bejing and in the pristine rainforest at ATTO. They wanted to get insights into the chemical characteristic and evolutions of these HOM particles. In particular, they wanted to find out more about the potential of HOMs to form free radicals. These are highly reactive species with unpaired electrons.

In September, scientists of the ATTO project met in Manaus for our 2019 workshop. To our delight, representatives of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), project manager on the German side, and of the Brazilian Ministry for Science could join us for the entire week. During the workshop, we dedicated a large amount of time to poster sessions in a relaxed atmosphere. That way, many participants had the opportunity to present their work and had time for personal exchange with project partners. In addition, we placed another emphasis on interdisciplinary breakout sessions for topics where the research questions of different working groups overlap.

The third ATTO newsletter is here! It features announcements regarding the ATTO workshop a new talk series for ATTO scientists at INPA and a breakdown of new publications. The “Meet the team” series is also back, bigger and better, now including project veterans and newbies alike!

Christopher Pöhlker and co-authors published an extensive new paper, characterizing the footprint region of ATTO. They hope that fellow researchers in the Amazon region can use this publication as resource and reference work to embed ATTO observations into a larger context of Amazonian deforestation and land-use change. Pöhlker et al. published the paper Open Access in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Volume 19.

We hear a lot about particulate matter these days, mostly in the context of air pollution in inner cities. But what about particulate matter in the Amazon rainforest? Well, the short answer is that particulate matter is present in the air above the Amazon, too. And although its concentrations are lower than those in large cities, urbanization and deforestation fires have a significant impact. To find out what that impact exactly is, was the aim of a new study by Suzane de Sá and co-authors.

Felipe Souza and co-authors now collected bioaerosols at our ATTO site. Then they extracted and analyzed the DNA to determine the communities present. This is the first study that described the community of microorganisms within aerosols in the Amazon. They found many different types of bacteria and fungi. Some were cosmopolitan taxa, but they also identified many that are specific to certain environments such as soil or water. This suggests that the atmosphere may act as an important gateway for bacteria to be exchanged between plants, soil, and water.

We’re excited to announce that this year our annual ATTO meeting takes place on September 16-18 and will be hosted by INPA in Manaus. The meeting is open to all consortium member and invited guests and we can’t wait to see everyone

The second ATTO newsletter is out now. It features new team members, the big ATTO presence at the EGU 2019, infrastructure updates at the site and more.

EGU 2019 is shining a light on Amazon research. Jošt Lavrič, Beto Quesada, Alessandro Araújo and Matthias Sörgel are chairing a session titled „Intact Amazon forest – a natural laboratory of global significance“. We‘re excited that, in addition to many of our

Pfannerstill et al. compared VOC emissions at ATTO between a normal year and one characterized by a strong El Nino with severe droughts in the Amazon. The did not find large differences, except in the time of day that the plants release the VOCs. They published their results in the journal Frontiers in Forest and Global Change.

Wu et al. collected and analyzed aerosols in two locations: the city of Manaus, a large urban area in Brazil, and the ATTO site in the heart of the forest. The aerosol compositions varied largly. At ATTO most aerosols were emitted by the forest itself, while in Manaus, anthropogenic aerosols were very common. The results were published in ACP.

ATTO just released its first-ever newsletter! Four times a year it will keep you up-to-date on new publications, upcoming conferences and much more. This edition contains an overview of new publications, a retrospect of the recent ATTO workshop and information about infrastructure updates at ATTO.

Aquino et al. published a new study in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology about the characteristics of turbulence within the forest canopy at two Amazonian sites. They found that the air layer close to ground is largly decouples from the air layer in the upper canopy and above.

Saturno et al. analyzed the concentration of black and brown carbon in the atmosphere above the Amazon. They found that the dry season is characterized by lots of biomass burnings, which produce a lot of black and brown carbon. But they also sound significant interannual variations. The results were published in ACP.

Mira Pöhlker and her team continuously measured aerosols and their properties in the atmosphere at the 80 m tower at ATTO, thereby created the first such long-term record in the Amazon. They analyzed the data in two subsequent paper. The second was now published in ACP.

Saturno et al. used the eruption of two volcanoes in Congo to trace the transport of sulfate particles from Central Africa to the Amazon basin. They are using this as a case study to understand how gas and particle emissions from Africa are transported over the Atlantic Ocean. The results are published in ACP.

Moran-Zuloaga et al. analyzed the coarse fraction of aerosols every 5 minutes for over 3 years at ATTO. They found that the composition remains fairly constant throughout the year, except for a short period in the wet season when Saharan dust occurs regularly. They published their results in ACP.