PICO
Primary biological aerosol particles span a wide range of sizes from tens of nanometers to up to 100µm. Bioaerosols is a ‘catch all’ term to denote airborne microorganisms (airborne fungi, bacteria, pollen, virus and their constituents). Bioaerosols, or subsets of bioaerosols are sometimes known by other terms such as primary biological aerosol particles (PBAPs), aeroallergens or BioPM. While these particles make a small contribution to the total aerosol number they contribute significantly to the total mass, with biological aerosol accounting for 15-25% of the total aerosol mass burden. The detection and classification of bioaerosol remains a significant technical challenge, where real-time methods capable of high temporal resolution are often limited by their discriminative capabilities, and offline methods which provide detailed speciation suffer from poor time resolution and difficulties in producing atmospheric concentrations. As such, accurately quantifying bioaerosol and understanding their impacts is of importance to an increasingly diverse range of research communities as they pose scientific questions relating to their influence on climate via cloud-aerosol interactions; the effects of allergenic species on public health and air quality and how this may be impacted by changes introduced by net zero policy; the agricultural health security impacts of pathogenic species; and the efficacy of early warning capabilities for national security and defence.
The aim of this session is to bring together expertise from a wide range of disciplines broadly studying bioaerosols. We welcome presentations covering topics on real-time detection methods and machine learning data processing techniques, technique validation, laboratory studies, indoor and outdoor ambient observations, the application and development of models, forecasting and nowcasting, exposure assessment and associated health impacts.