Our fourth ECR seminar, held on July 22nd, 2025, brought together two exciting perspectives from opposite sides of the globe. We began with Yuxuan Ren, from Washington University in St. Louis (USA), who presented her work “Black Carbon: Black Carbon Emissions Generally Underestimated in the Global South as Revealed by Globally Distributed Measurements”. Yuxuan walked us through how black carbon, a major climate forcer and air pollutant, is often systematically underestimated in emission inventories for many countries in the Global South. Her research highlights the importance of improving measurement coverage and accuracy to better inform mitigation strategies.
The second speaker, Carolina de A. Monteiro from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (Germany), took us deep into the rainforest canopy with her talk on “Nitric Oxide and Ozone Mixing Ratios Above the Canopy in the Rainforest”. Carolina shared results from in-situ measurements taken above the green canopy, revealing the dynamic exchange of reactive gases between the forest and the atmosphere. She explained how nitric oxide (NO) and ozone (O₃) interact in this unique environment, the influence of biological and photochemical processes, and how these interactions feed into larger atmospheric chemistry and climate patterns. Her work sheds light on how pristine ecosystems contribute to – and are affected by – atmospheric composition changes.
A big thank you and congratulations to both presenters for sharing their work with the IGAC ECR community! Both presentations ended with engaging discussions and informative Q&As. To find out more, check out the seminar recording below: