2024-2025: Atmospheric Sciences: Jose D Fuentes

Jose D Fuentes
The Pennsylvania State University

Biography

Jose D Fuentes is a Professor of Atmospheric Science at the Pennsylvania State University where he teaches undergraduate- and graduate-level courses in Micrometeorology, Biometeorology, and Air Chemistry. His research focuses on surface-atmosphere interactions related to emissions, turbulent transport, surface deposition, and chemistry of reactive gases and aerosols. To complete his field studies, he employs flux towers, tethered balloons, and drones that have been deployed at many sites representing different surface characteristics. He has also contributed to the development of numerical models to investigate the chemistry of halogens and the aerosol formation in the Arctic atmospheric boundary layer during the springtime. In recent time, he has investigated the emissions, turbulent transport, and chemistry of the scents that insects need to locate flowers. Fuentes has served on many editorial and advisory boards, including the Committee on Equal Opportunities in Science and Engineering, which is a congressionally mandated advisory committee to the National Science Foundation to identify national strategies to broaden the participation of under-represented groups in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Fuentes is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, and American Association for the Advancement of Science. In recognition of his work to promote Geosciences in the Americans, in 2023 Fuentes received the Ambassador Award from the American Geophysical Union.


Abstract: Flowers, Bees and Climate Change

Flowers release scents to attract insect pollinators such as bees. Scents provide species-specific floral cues that allow pollinators to locate preferred flowers over large spatial scales. Terpenoids, benzenoids, and fatty acid derivatives dominate the blends of bouquet scents. Scents are reactive and once in the atmosphere and while they are transported across the landscape, they react with air pollutants such ozone, nitrate radical, and hydroxyl radical. As they react during transport, individual compounds diminish relative to their reactivity, causing changes both in intensity and composition of the scent profile. This presentation will highlight results from numerical simulations designed to determine the extent chemical reactions of air pollutants with scents modify integrity of bouquets emitted by flowers and reduce strength of olfactory signals conveyed to pollinators. Simulations consider air pollutant levels and air turbulence experienced in the lower atmosphere during the summertime in places such as eastern United States. Turbulent transport and chemical reactions employ a Lagrangian trajectory framework to calculate scent concentration as air parcels make contact with sources, determine turbulent transport of scents, and compute reductions in scent concentrations within air parcels due to reactions with air pollutants. Results indicate that even in moderately polluted air masses (e.g., with ozone levels of 60 parts per billion) the most reactive floral scents only travel 100s of meters from sources before being destroyed by chemical reactions whereas low-reactivity molecules can travel 1000s of meters from their floral source. If present at sufficient levels, scents may also impact the local oxidative chemistry as they can potentially act as sinks and/or sources of hydroxyl radical through ozonolysis. Air pollutants reduce the ability of pollinators to discover scent plumes that allow them to locate flowers, and act to prolong pollinators foraging times.