Workshop: Variable Atmosphere Laboratory (VAL) Workshop 2; Arlington, VA; May 2009

在了解大气和气候变化对生态系统和健康的影响方面仍存在主要的不确定性。预测地球和生物系统对不断上升的温度和不断增加的气体（二氧化碳、臭氧、甲烷、二氧化氮、二氧化硫）的复杂混合物的反应是具有挑战性的，因为很难控制这些多个参数并创建重复的实验，特别是在足够大的规模上研究生物群落。微量气体的升高将如何影响社区从大气中清除二氧化碳的能力尚不清楚。在地质时期，大气成分的变化已经被假设为推动主要的进化变化，但如果没有对生物的大气成分进行实验测试，这些假设很难评估。空气污染物与近年来哮喘等呼吸系统疾病的急剧上升有关，但用于实验测试大气成分影响的设施不足。该奖项由美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的BIO和GEO理事会共同资助，将支持一个研讨会，讨论设计和实施一个国家设施，研究大气成分和气候对生物和地球过程的影响。讲习班的参与者在科学专业知识、性别、地理出身、种族和职业阶段方面构成了一个多样化的科学家群体。此外，来自各种潜在联邦资助机构的代表将参加研讨会。

Key uncertainties remain in understanding the effects of atmospheric and climatic change on ecosystems and health. Predicting the responses of the earth and biological systems to rising temperatures and the complex mixture of increasing gases (carbon dioxide, ozone, methane, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide) is challenging as it is difficult to control these multiple parameters and create replicated experiments, especially on a scale large enough to study biological communities. How elevations in trace gases will affect the capacity of communities to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is unknown. Changes in atmospheric composition over geologic time have been hypothesized to drive major evolutionary changes, but these hypotheses are difficult to evaluate without experimental tests of atmospheric composition on organisms. Air pollutants have been implicated in the dramatic recent elevations in respiratory diseases like asthma, but facilities for experimentally testing the effect of atmospheric composition are insufficient. This award, jointly funded by the National Science Foundation's BIO and GEO directorates, will support a workshop to discuss the design and implementation of a national facility to study the effects of atmospheric composition and climate on biological and earth processes. The workshop participants constitute a diverse group of scientists in terms of scientific expertise, gender, geographic origin, ethnicity, and career stages. In addition, representatives from a variety of potential federal funding agencies will attend the workshop.