Participating Faculty
Primary Faculty
Able to advise Atmospheric Sciences doctoral students.
Move your mouse over each faculty member's name for more information on research interests. Faculty Home Page Links where available. |
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Will Cantrell
Interests and current scope of research activities:
- heterogeneous nucleation of ice.
- thermodynamics of clouds.
- thin films.
Home department: Physics
Home Page
I am currently investigating the mechanisms underlying heterogeneous
nucleation of ice in the atmosphere. Ice forms through two paths in
the atmosphere. In the upper troposphere and stratosphere, where
temperatures can be colder than 40 degrees below zero, ice can form
through homgeneous nucleation of supercooled water droplets. However,
in the lower troposphere, ice forms with the aid of small bits of
insoluble dust - hence the name heterogeneous nucleation.
One approach is to probe the arrangement of water molecules on
suitable substrates (e.g. muscovite mica or long chain alcohols) with
Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy. Since the hydrogen bonding
network between water molecules is particularly sensitive to
perturbations from the influence of the substrate, I can relate the
spectroscopic signature to the water-substrate bond strength and to
the degree of order in the film of water molecules coating the
substrate.
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Simon Carn
Interests and current scope of research activities:
- Using satellite measurements to constrain global volcanic SO2 emissions
- Validation of OMI SO2 retrievals using correlative data from ground-based, airborne and space-borne instruments
- Tracking volcanic SO2 and ash clouds operationally for aviation hazard mitigation
- Remote sensing of tropospheric volcanic plumes using DOAS and FTIR
- Quantifying anthropogenic emissions of SO2 from sources such as copper smelters and oil and gas fields
- Mitigation of the environmental and health impacts of volcanic degassing using satellite data
- Comparisons between satellite observations and chemical transport model simulations of volcanic clouds and plumes
Home department: Geological and Mining Engineering and Science
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My current research focus is the application of remote sensing data to studies of volcanic degassing, volcanic eruption clouds, and anthropogenic pollution. Space-borne sensors such as the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite now allow us to probe the chemistry of the lower troposphere and measure the abundance of sulfur dioxide (SO2), ozone, bromine monoxide (BrO), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and other important trace gases with unprecedented sensitivity. The cross-platform sensor synergy provided by NASA’s A-Train satellite constellation is advancing our knowledge of volcanic cloud composition and transport. My main focus is SO2, a precursor of sulfate aerosol, which plays an important role in the atmosphere through negative climate forcing and impacts on cloud microphysics. The spatiotemporal variability of natural and anthropogenic SO2 emissions, and hence of global sulfate aerosol abundance, is poorly constrained, impacting the accuracy of climate models.
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Paul Doskey
Interests and current scope of research activities:
- Atmospheric chemistry of organic substances.
- Environmental chemodynamics of synthetic organic chemicals.
- Atmosphere-surface exchange of C and N compounds.
- Biogeochemistry of climate-forcing gases, aerosol precursors, and
aerosols.
Home Departments: Civil & Environmental Engineering, School of Forest
Resources and Environmental Science
Home Page
Atmosphere-surface exchange of climate-forcing gases (e.g., CO2, CH4,
N2O) and aerosol precursors (e.g., terpenes, NH3) is affected by
changes in land use and biodiversity, climatic perturbations, and
atmospheric deposition of macronutrients (e.g., C, N, S, P) and plant
stressors like ozone. The goal of our research is (1) to advance
mechanistic understanding of the biogeochemical processing of
synthetic organic chemicals, climate-forcing gases, and aerosol
precursors and (2) to improve the ability of multimedia environmental
and Earth system models to predict the fate of chemicals in various
compartments of the environment and responses of the Earth system to
nutrient supply, biospheric stressors, changes in land use and
biodiversity, and climatic perturbations. Research activities include
sampling and analytic technique development, landscape- and
regional-scale measurements of ambient levels and atmosphere-surface
exchange rates from surface- and aircraft-based platforms, and
development of parameterizations for environmental and biogeochemical
processes.
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Alexander
Kostinski
Interests and current scope of research activities:
- atmospheric turbulence
- fundamental processes governing cloud droplet formation and ice
nucleation in the atmosphere.
- remote sensing of clouds and rain
Home department: Physics
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Louisa Kramer
Interests and current scope of research activities:
- Long-range transport of trace gases and their impact on the chemical composition of the atmosphere, - Satellite remote sensing and validation, - Surface-atmosphere fluxes of reactive gas species from soils and snow,
- Development of instrumentation for measuring atmospheric trace gases.
Home department: Geological/Mining Engineering & Sciences
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Claudio Mazzoleni
Interests and current scope of research activities:
- Measurement of aerosol optical properties and aerosol radiative
impacts on climate.
- Study of aerosol-cloud interactions.
- Assessment of the contributions of particulate from
anthropogenic pollution and from natural processes to air quality
deterioration and climate changes.
- Development of instrumentation and analysis techniques for
environmental monitoring.
Home department: Physics
Home Page
We are interested in elucidating the effects that aerosols of both
anthropogenic and natural origin, have on earth's climate and air
quality. The goal of our research is to contribute to a better
fundamental understanding of aerosols and to provide tools and
knowledge to advance future climate models' performance and improve
air quality. The effects of aerosols on the climate system -- through
the direct, semidirect and indirect effects and through deposition on
snow and ice -- are still poorly quantified and constitute one of the
largest and most challenging uncertainties in climate science. This
dramatically reduces our ability to correctly describe the radiative
balance of our planet and to produce accurate and credible predictions
for future global changes. The difficulty in correctly representing
aerosols in climate models is related to the extreme complexity of the
aerosol properties and their interactions with the environment. We
focus our research efforts on studying aerosol optical properties and
their interaction with solar radiation, clouds and snow by analyzing
data collected by means of in-situ measurements performed in different
locations of the globe (from polluted urban areas to remote regions)
on board aircraft or on the ground. We also study aerosol morphology
and the relation of morphology to optical properties.
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Lynn Mazzoleni
Interests and current scope of research activities:
- Identification of methods for organic aerosol components.
- Development of new liquid chromatographic separations for polar and
highly polar (i.e., hydrophilic) organic compounds.
- Advanced mass spectrometric methods for organic compound
identifications.
- Secondary organic aerosol formation products and mechanisms.
- Impacts of organic aerosol components on the physical properties of
atmospheric aerosol.
Home department: Chemistry
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Judith
Perlinger
Interests and current scope of research activities:
- Transport and transformation of organic pollutants in the atmosphere.
- Technology for trace organic analysis.
- Boundary layer meteorology.
- Micrometeorological measurement and models of exchange of organic
pollutants between the atmosphere and surface water and the biosphere.
- The semivolatile fraction of organic aerosols and its impact on
climate.
Home department: Civil & Environmental Engineering
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My current research interests in atmospheric science are in organic
pollution and impacts on ecosystems. My research group has developed
technologies to speciate and measure concentrations of organic
chemicals in indoor air and urban, rural, and remote outdoor air.
This technology is used in micrometeorological approaches to measure
air-surface exchange rates. We have applied the technology to carry
out over-water measurement of air-water gas transfer of semivolatile
organic pollutants and carbon dioxide in the Laurentian Great Lakes.
We have also developed a mechanistic two-dimensional Lagrangian model
to quantify the effects of boundary layer meteorology on transport and
transfer of scalars in coastal regions, which we employ to improve
estimates of pollutant loading, to determine optimal sampling schemes,
and to compare with measurements.
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Tom Pypker
Interests and current scope of research activities:
- Impacts of climate and land-use changes on ecosystems.
- Micrometeorological measurements of gas fluxes on scales ranging
from the leaf to the ecosystem.
Home department: School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science
Home Page
My atmospheric science research focuses on the vertical exchange of
matter and energy between forests and the atmosphere. I am interested
in how management (e.g. timber harvesting, peatland draining),
invasive species and climate change will alter ecosystem processes. I
employ techniques that monitor the exchange of water and carbon from
individual plants (e.g. sapflow, leaf-gas exchange) to whole
ecosystems (e.g. Bowen ratio and eddy covariance techniques).
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William
I. Rose
Interests and current scope of research activities:
- volcanic clouds: their formation, chemical and physical.
- silicate particle composition and long-range transport in the
atmosphere.
- Impacts of volcanic emissions on the troposphere and stratosphere.
- remote sensing of volcanoes and volcanic plumes.
- volcanic hazards.
Home department: Geological and Mining Engineering and Science
Home Page
I have been studying volcanic gases and particles for 40 years. I use
direct sampling methods and a wide variety of remote sensing,
including ground-based and satellite methods. A recent focus has been
the fate and transport of volcanic ash, which is interdisciplinary
science involving meteorology, volcanology and atmospheric physics and
chemistry. Environmental effects of explosive eruptions, including
effects on human health and aircraft safety are also addressed in my
work.
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Raymond
Shaw
Interests and current scope of research activities:
- Cloud physics.
- Interactions between atmospheric turbulence and clouds.
- Ice nucleation.
Home department: Physics
Home Page
My research group is working on problems related to the physics of
clouds in the earth's atmosphere. For example, have you ever noticed
while flying that the ride gets bumpy when the airplane enters a
cloud? It's because clouds are turbulent and we are interested to
learn whether the turbulence in clouds can accelerate the formation of
raindrops. We study this and related problems in many ways, ranging
from computer simulations to laboratory experiments, to field studies.
In the lab we have built a turbulent "cloud in a box" and we use
digital holography to see first hand how cloud droplets get jostled
around during their own turbulent flights. Together with our close
colleagues at the Institute for Tropospheric Research in Leipzig,
Germany, we take our own bumpy flights through clouds, making
measurements that help link our idealized laboratory work to the real
world. When we're not busy with turbulent clouds, we think about how
ice forms in clouds --- laboratory experiments here at Michigan Tech
and with colleagues in Leipzig using the Leipzig Aerosol-Cloud
Interaction System are teaching us about the mysteries of how dust,
volcanic ash, and other materials act to catalyze the formation of ice
crystals.
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Shiliang Wu
Interests and current scope of research activities:
- Chemical transport modeling.
- Impacts of global change on atmospheric chemistry, air quality and
long-range transport of air pollution.
- Interactions among atmospheric chemistry, air quality, climate,
and land use/land cover.
- Atmosphere-biosphere interactions, especially in the context of
global change.
Home departments: Geological and Mining Engineering and Science; Civil
& Environmental Engineering
Home Page
Human activities (such as the intensive use of fossil fuel,
urbanization, deforestation, agricultural expansion or
intensification) have been imposing significant perturbations to the
atmosphere. I am interested in a wide range of research topics in
global environmental change, especially the interactions among
climate, atmospheric chemistry, ozone and aerosol air quality, land
use/land cover and biosphere-atmosphere exchange.
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| Affiliated Faculty |
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Interests: atmosphere-biosphere interactions, impacts of atmospheric deposition and climate variability on ecosystems.
Forestry |
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Barry Solomon
Interests: economic incentives and policy development for air pollution, energy policy, and global climate change
Social Sciences |
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Sarah
Green
Interests: atmospheric chemistry
Chemistry |
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Michael Roggemann
Interests: adaptive and atmospheric optics, image processing, optics
Electrical and Computer Engineering |
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Kurt Paterson
Interests: atmospheric chemistry and transport modeling, indoor
and urban air quality
Civil and Environmental Engineering |
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Lyon B. King
Interests: plasma physics and engineering
Mechanical Engineering / Engineering Mechanics |
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