Our research group studies the interactions between the biosphere and the atmosphere to understand how vegetation affects atmospheric chemistry and climate. The biosphere is a living and dynamic component of the Earth System, and is constantly responding to the world around it. Our research focuses on understanding how emission from the biosphere can affect atmospheric chemistry and air quality, as well as understanding how changes at the land surface can affect regional climate.
NEWS
2021: ONWARDS!
- Weekly atmospheric chemistry seminars – Frontiers in Atmospheric Chemistry Seminar Series (FACSS) – continues for Spring 2021. Check out our great lineup of speakers here.
- Congratulations to Yingxiao Zhang, who passed her Ph.D. qualifying exam in January!
- Check out the new paper by graduate student Samar Minallah in Journal of Climate titled “Role of the Atmospheric Moisture Budget in Defining the Precipitation Seasonality in the Great Lakes region” She compares several different reanalysis products to identify where moisture comes from the in the region and what defines the precipitation cycle.
- Graduate student Samar Minallah has *two* other new papers out this year on our Great Lakes work: The first looks at the atmospheric water cycle in the CMIP6 models to understand how models are simulating regional precip change, and the second focuses on the representation of the Great Lakes in the new ERA-5 and its impact on regional precipitation.
- Another new paper from CIGLR postdoctoral fellow Anahiti Amiri-Farahani on the role of lake spray aerosol emissions on regional climate in the Great Lakes region – here we model the observed impacts of LSA by colleague Andy Ault at UM – and it has a pretty big impact on regional chemistry.
2020: THE REST OF THE YEAR….
It’s hard to come up with a list of “news” during this incredibly difficult and challenging time. We are all working from home (thank you, computational research), meeting online, and trying to stay healthy and sane. I have been amazed at the work that everyone in the group has been able to accomplish under the new normal. And good things have been happening: papers and proposals are getting submitted, and we keep trying to understand how we can do research and keep moving on during this challenging time. And there are some bright spots:
- Former grad student Matthew Wozniak (now a postdoc at Princeton) has has final dissertation chapter online, titled Influence of vertical heterogeneities in the canopy microenvironment on inter-annual variability of carbon uptake in temperate deciduous forests . Check out Figure 7, which shows how even multi-layer canopies can struggle to capture observed diffuse light.
- We are part of the Department of Energy’s Science Team for the new AMF3 deployment in the Southeastern US. Stay tuned for more updates about the site and how it will be selected.
- Congratulations to Samar Minallah, who was selected for the UCAR Next Generation Fellowship! Samar will be transitioning her work from understanding Great Lakes precipitation and runoff to working on glaciers and GLOF events in the Himalayas.
- Join us for weekly online talks with the Frontiers in Atmospheric Chemistry Seminar Series (FACSS): Fall 2020 schedule is here – hope to see you online!
Presentations from the group at the 2020 AGU Fall Meeting include:
- Monday, December 7: A006-0009: Insights into the formaldehyde (HCHO) budget at PROPHET Forest using leaf-level laboratory measurements and the FORCAsT model for biosphere-atmosphere exchange (with collaborator Josh Shutter)
- Tuesday, December 8: A051-08: Secondary organic aerosol formation from isoprene organic nitrates in a temperate forest (postdoc Dandan Wei)
- Tuesday, December 8: A046-07: Lake spray aerosol emissions alter thermodynamic equilibrium in the Great Lakes (postdoc Anahita Amiri-Farahani)
- Wednesday, December 16: H194-0012: Evaluation of terrestrial water and energy budget components over the St. Lawrence River Basin (with collaborator Yiwen Mei)
- Thursday, December 10: A092-0005: Modeling pollen emission variations over the continental U.S. with climate change (graduate student Yingxiao Zhang)
- Thursday, December 10: A092-0007: Identification of potential primary biological particle emissions and rupture events at the Southern Great Plains ARM site (postdoc Tamanna Subba)
- Friday December 11: U015-11: Understanding hydroclimatic drivers of harmful algal blooms in the Laurentian Great Lakes region(graduate student Samar Minallah: invited for last year’s OSPA award)
2020: PRE-COVID
Ah… the year was off to such a great start!
- Graduate student Samar Minallah received an AGU Fall Meeting Outstanding Student Paper award for her poster titled “Role of moisture flux divergence in mid-summer precipitation decrease over the Great Lakes region” – Congratulations Samar!
- Welcome to new postdoctoral fellow Tamanna Subba! Tamanna will be joining us from Dibrugarh University and will be working on emissions and fate of biological aerosol particles.
- March 2: Webinar re-broadcast of Allison’s AGU Atmospheric Sciences Centennial Talks titled “Terrestrial Biosphere-Atmosphere Interactions” is here. If you are interested in any of the graphics, they are now published in an ACS Accounts of Chemical Research manuscript available here.
- March 9: CLaSP hosts the second part of our Rackham funded workshop titled “Pathways to Societal Engagement” featuring speakers Peter Frumhoff from UCS, Missy Stultz, Jeff Masters, Knight-Wallace Fellow Marielba Nunez, and CLaSP alumni Matt Irish and Dalal Najib. It was a wonderful event talking about how to develop and chart pathways that use your science for societal engagement. Little did we know (we, meaning everyone except Jeff Masters, who warned me about the pandemic) that this would be our last in-person gathering for a long time….
For older events, please visit the News Archive.