Worldwide heavy oil and bitumen deposits amount to 9
trillion barrels of oil distributed in over 280 basins
around the world, with Canada home to oil sands
deposits of 1.7 trillion barrels. The global
development of this resource and the increase in oil
production from oil sands has caused environmental
concerns over the presence of toxic compounds in
nearby ecosystems and acid deposition. The
contribution of oil sands exploration to secondary
organic aerosol formation, an important component of
atmospheric particulate matter that affects air
quality and climate, remains poorly understood. In
this seminar, we present data from airborne
measurements over the Canadian oil sands and
laboratory smog chamber experiments and results from a
chemistry numerical model to provide a quantitative
assessment of the magnitude of secondary organic
aerosol production from oil sands emissions. We find
that the evaporation and atmospheric oxidation of
low-volatility organic vapours from the mined oil
sands material is directly responsible for the
majority of the observed secondary organic aerosol
mass. The resultant production rates of
45–84 tonnes per day make the oil sands one of the
largest sources of anthropogenic secondary organic
aerosols in North America. Our findings suggest that
the production of the more viscous crude oils could be
a large source of secondary organic aerosols in many
production and refining regions around the world.
Dr. Stroud is a research scientist in the air quality research division at
Environment and Climate Change Canada. He
contributes tothe development and evaluation
of Environment Canada's air quality
numerical models. These models are used to
create the public forecast of the air
quality health index. Dr. Stroud was the
lead author of the "Atmospheric Chemistry
Processes" chapter in the 2010 Canada Smog
Science Assessment. He is considered an
expert in modelling the chemical
transformation of organic compounds in the
atmosphere.
Dr. Stroud was awarded the Governor General's Silver Medal and Faculty of
Science Gold Medal for his undergraduate
studies at York University. He then moved to
the US and completed a PhD in chemistry from
the University of Colorado. He was then
awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at NCAR
before returning back to Canada to start his
current position at Environment Canada.
Contact at the MS2Discovery Research Institute: Hind Al-Abadleh (Host of the speaker, Multidisciplinary Talk, Tectons 1, 5, and others)
Refreshments will be provided
