GML Seminars

For questions about GML seminars, contact Julie Singewald, Phone: (303) 497-6074

Visitor Information: The Visitors Center and entrance to the Boulder Department of Commerce facilities are located on Broadway at Rayleigh Road. All visiting seminar attendees, including pedestrians and bike riders, are required to check in at the Visitors Center at the Security Checkpoint to receive a visitor badge. Seminar attendees need to present a valid photo ID and mention the seminar title or the speaker's name to obtain a visitor badge. If security personnel asks for a point of contact please list Julie Singewald (x6074).

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Seminars for 2019

Title:

Using multi-instrument observations of shallow cumulus as a tool for improving simulations of cloud radiative impacts
Speaker: Dr. Laura Riihimaki
Laura Riihimaki has over 12 years of experience working with ground-based remote sensing measurements, using her physics background to develop observational retrievals, characterize uncertainties, and bridge the gap between observations and models. In 2019, she began a job as a research scientist with the Global Monitoring Division at the NOAA Earth Systems Research Laboratory. Previously (2008-2018), she worked in the Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change division of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. From 2012-2019, she served as a translator for the Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility. In that role, she led a team of scientists and software engineers to produce and maintain retrieval data products that run operationally at multiple ARM sites, and facilitated communication of scientific priorities between ARM staff and the scientific user community. Dr. Riihimaki earned a bachelor's degree in physics from Wheaton College and a doctorate in physics from the University of Oregon and is an active member of the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society.
Date/Time: Monday, April 1, 2019 11:00 AM
Location: DSRC GC-402
Abstract
Clouds modulate the surface energy budget in significant ways but are still a challenge for models to simulate accurately at all resolutions. On the climate scale they modulate the energy budget and are the largest source of uncertainty in climate feedbacks to anthropogenic forcing. In high-resolution models, capturing clouds correctly is critical to capture precipitation and meteorology on short time scales, and solar radiation for solar forecasting purposes. In this talk, I will describe multi-instrument approaches to observe shallow cumulus and their radiative effects in order to evaluate and improve climate models as part of two projects. The first project was an effort to develop observations needed to constrain shallow cumulus clouds for the ARM LES ARM Symbiotic Simulation and Observation (LASSO) project. LASSO is developing a library of LES simulations of shallow cumulus evaluated by observations in order to provide the atmospheric science community with. The second project aims to improve the simulation of the variability of surface solar irradiance in weather models for better use in solar forecasting situations. As solar forecasting is particularly challenging in broken clouds, one focus of the project is examining shallow cumulus clouds.

Title:

On science informing international policy: Are emissions of a banned ozone-depleting substance still increasing, and what’s being done about it?
Speaker: Dr. Steve Montzka
Dr. Steve Montzka is a Research Chemist in the Global Monitoring Division at NOAA ESRL. He is the project leader of the Chlorofluorocarbons Alternative Monitoring Project and is responsible for ongoing global atmospheric measurements of approximately 40 chemicals at multiple remote sites across the globe that influence climate, stratospheric ozone, and air quality.
Date/Time: Friday, April 26, 2019 11:00 AM
Location: David Skaggs Research Center, GC402 (multi-purpose room)
Abstract
Ongoing global-scale measurements of long-lived gases provide unique information for addressing important science and policy-relevant questions. As a recent example, in May of last year we published results suggesting that a country or countries may have recently increased production of an ozone-depleting gas, an apparent contravention of the Montreal Protocol (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0106-2). The observational evidence is straightforward: the atmospheric concentration of CFC-11, the second most abundant ozone-depleting gas, is decreasing nearly half as fast as it was 5 years ago, and the slowdown started first in the northern hemisphere. These changes typically indicate increasing emissions, but this unsettling conclusion seemed highly unlikely, given that production of CFC-11 was reportedly banned in 2010. Equally implausible, however, was the alternative conclusion: that global atmospheric chemistry or dynamics had changed and altered the atmospheric decline of CFC-11. In this talk I’ll update the scientific evidence supporting the assertion that CFC-11 emissions and production have increased in recent years and discuss implications for the ozone layer. I’ll also discuss the international responses to this news, which include exhortations by UNEP’s Ozone Secretariat to better understand and resolve this issue as soon as possible, reassessments of the control mechanisms in the Montreal Protocol by its Parties (nations of the world), accusations by independent investigative agencies of extensive use and production in China, China itself conducting extensive in-country searches for use and production of CFC-11 and not finding much, and scientists analyzing new measurements and modeling results in an effort to improve our understanding of the issue and provide a path towards an effective solution.

Title:

Fires and Their Impacts: From Household Burning to Wildfires
Speaker: Christine Wiedinmyer
Dr. Christine Wiedinmyer is the CIRES Associate Director for Science. Dr. Wiedinmyer was previously a staff scientist at NCAR in the Atmospheric Chemistry Observations & Modeling Laboratory for over 15 years. She received her PhD in chemical engineering at the University of Texas. Dr. Wiedinmyer is an expert in air pollution emissions with links to air quality, land use, climate, and human health. She was a founding member and is a current board member of the Earth Science Women's Network, a non-profit organization with thousands of members that aims to encourage and retain women working in the earth sciences.
Date/Time: Thursday, June 27, 2019 02:00 PM
Location: David Skaggs Research Center, GC402 (multi-purpose room)
Abstract
Fires, including wildfires, prescribed burns, agricultural burning, or residential biomass burning, emit substantial amounts of particles, reactive trace gases, and longer lived species to the atmosphere on regional and global scales. These emissions and the products from downwind chemical processing degrade air quality, impact regional climate, and contribute to negative human health outcomes. There are many existing efforts to quantify emissions from biomass burning. These take advantage of laboratory and field measurements, remote sensing observations, and various modeling tools. Despite great advances in the ability to identify and quantify emissions from biomass burning, the techniques used to predict emissions and understand their fate and transport in the atmosphere remain uncertain, and the subsequent estimates of the impacts are difficult to assess. This presentation will detail efforts to identify and quantify biomass burning emissions across scales, and highlight their importance and confounding factors in air quality, health, and climate impact assessments. I will give an overview of my past and current biomass burning research, highlighting key uncertainties in our ability to predict biomass burning emissions and their impact and addressing needs for the future.

Title:

Aerosols: a perspective on their modeling and assimilation
Speaker: Mariusz Pagowski
Mariusz Pagowski is a CIRES scientist and has been with NOAA/ESRL Global Systems Division since 2002. He received his PhD from York University in Toronto and previously worked at Environment Canada. His interests include aerosol modeling, data assimilation, and boundary layers.
Date/Time: Tuesday, July 2, 2019 11:00 AM
Location: David Skaggs Research Center, GC402 (multi-purpose room)
Abstract
Skill in aerosol modeling is important for improving air quality and climate prediction. According to the EPA, chronic exposure to particulates with diameters smaller than 2.5 um (or PM2.5) is the single most critical factor affecting human mortality due to air pollution. According to the Fifth Assessment Report Aerosols of the IPCC “clouds and aerosols contribute the largest uncertainty to estimates and interpretation of the Earth’s changing energy budget”. Some of this uncertainty results from difficulty in parameterizing interactions between aerosols, clouds, and radiation and from our generally poor understanding of atmospheric aerosols as a result of scarcity of their observations and deficiencies of chemical models. For climate modeling such uncertainty in calculating Earth’s energy budget is of fundamental importance. On the other hand, learning from experience of ECMWF and NASA, among others, it is difficult to argue that with the current skill, medium range weather forecasts can statistically benefit from aerosol-sensitive parameterizations. In this presentation I will focus on forecasting aerosols on timescales of up to few days where their impact on weather is, except during rare events, not significant anyway. I will present my past and current work on aerosol modeling and assimilation in the context of NOAA’s renewed interest in this topic and projects that I lead and participate in. I will discuss challenges in aerosol forecasting, propose what seem to be interesting research ideas, and attempt to outline path forward to advance NOAA’s aerosol science.

Title:

Stratospheric Sulfur Geoengineering – Benefits and Risks
Speaker: Alan Robock
Dr. Alan Robock is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in Meteorology. Before graduate school, he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines. Prior to becoming faculty at Rutgers, he was a professor at the University of Maryland and the State Climatologist of Maryland. He recently served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which operates the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Prof. Robock's areas of expertise include the climate effects of volcanic eruptions and nuclear war. His work on the potential humanitarian impacts nuclear war contributed to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its groundbreaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons”.
Date/Time: Monday, July 29, 2019 11:00 AM
Location: David Skaggs Research Center, GC402 (multi-purpose room)
Abstract

Geoengineering, also called climate engineering or climate intervention, has been proposed as a “solution” to global warming, involving “solar radiation management” by injecting particles into the stratosphere, brightening clouds, or blocking sunlight with satellites between the Sun and Earth. While volcanic eruptions have been suggested as innocuous examples of sulfate stratospheric aerosols cooling the planet, the volcano analog actually illustrates many potential risks of stratospheric geoengineering, including of ozone depletion and regional hydrologic responses. No such systems to conduct stratospheric geoengineering now exist, but the least expensive option would probably be to invent airplanes that could put sulfur gases into the stratosphere. Nevertheless, it may be very difficult to create stratospheric sulfate particles with a desirable size distribution.

Our Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project, conducting climate model experiments with standard stratospheric aerosol injection scenarios, is ongoing. We have found that if there were a way to continuously inject SO2 into the lower stratosphere, it would produce global cooling, stopping melting of the ice caps, and increasing the uptake of CO2 by plants. But there are at least 27 reasons why stratospheric geoengineering may be a bad idea. These include disruption of the Asian and African summer monsoons, reducing precipitation to the food supply for billions of people; ozone depletion; no more blue skies; reduction of solar power; and rapid global warming if it stops, with devastating impacts on natural ecosystems. Furthermore, there are concerns about commercial or military control, and it may seriously degrade terrestrial astronomy and satellite remote sensing. Global efforts to stop anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases (mitigation) and to adapt to climate change are needed no matter what, if we choose to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Whether implementation of stratospheric geoengineering would be make the situation more dangerous needs to be answered by ongoing research.


Title:

Atmospheric Observing with small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS): Recent results and upcoming adventures
Speaker: Dr. Gijs de Boer
Dr. Gijs de Boer is a Research Scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), working in the Physical Sciences Division at NOAA ESRL. He earned a bachelors degree in atmospheric science at Cornell University and Masters and Doctoral degrees in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After completing his degrees he spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher and staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory before starting full time at CIRES. Along the way, he has amassed 15 years of experience working on high latitude atmospheric physics, resulting in over 40 peer reviewed publications. He serves numerous roles in the Arctic research community, acting as an Atmosphere Collaboration Team co-lead for the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC), a US representative to the Atmosphere Working Group of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and co-chair of the US Department of Energy Atmospheric System Research (ASR) High Latitude Processes Working Group. For his high latitude work and efforts to disseminate results to the general public, he was awarded the 2013 Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (PECASE) by President Barack Obama. Over the last five years, he has expanded his research to focus on using unmanned aircraft for atmospheric research at all latitudes, and worked to develop and deploy innovative sensors and technology to collect Earth system data.
Date/Time: Wednesday, August 28, 2019 11:00 AM
Location: David Skaggs Research Center, GC402 (multi-purpose room)
Abstract
Recent years have witnessed an increased use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for observing the Earth system. A wide variety of platforms have been deployed for this purpose, ranging from the very large (NASA Global Hawk), to the very small (University of Colorado DataHawk), and several in between. Recent advances in technology have resulted in a particular uptick in the use of small UAS (sUAS, typically <55 lbs), due to the potential for operation of low cost systems with a small operational footprint. Such systems provide a unique viewpoints on the horizontal, vertical and temporal variability of atmospheric and surface properties. Additionally, they offer opportunities to collect measurements in difficult-to-sample environments. In this presentation, I will provide an overview of recent collaborative efforts undertaken to develop and deploy sUAS for atmospheric science. I will provide a background on the types of science we are looking to accomplish with these systems, the systems themselves, instrumentation and operational considerations. Additionally, I will provide some glimpses into results from recent campaigns across a variety of locations, including the Arctic and Colorado’s San Luis Valley. Finally, I will provide information on current and upcoming efforts to develop and deploy additional UAS-based instrumentation in a variety of different regimes around the globe, and offer perspectives on how these systems compliment and are complimented by long-term observing stations.

Title:

Approaching Two Decades of MOPITT - What have we learned from satellite carbon monoxide observations
Speaker: Helen Worden
Dr. Helen Worden is a project scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in the Atmospheric Chemistry Observations & Modeling Laboratory. She received a bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of Colorado and her PhD in Elementary Particle Physics from Cornell University. Prior to moving back to Boulder, Dr. Worden was at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, where she worked on the NASA Aura Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer. Since 2016, she has been the U.S. Principal Investigator for the MOPITT instrument on the NASA Terra satellite.
Date/Time: Tuesday, September 24, 2019 11:00 AM
Location: David Skaggs Research Center, GC402 (multi-purpose room)
Abstract
Measurements Of Pollution In The Troposphere (MOPITT) on the NASA Terra spacecraft has been measuring the global atmospheric abundance of carbon monoxide (CO) since March 2000. Direct emissions of CO are mainly produced by incomplete combustion from both natural fires and anthropogenic activities, and CO is also produced chemically from methane and volatile organic carbon (VOC) species. CO plays an important role in atmospheric chemistry and climate because it is a dominant sink for the hydroxyl radical (OH) and thus affects the abundance of methane (CH4) and ozone (O3). Anthropogenic emissions of CO have a significant indirect radiative forcing of 0.22 W/m2. Satellite measurements of carbon monoxide are used to understand how pollution is emitted and transported globally, from large scale fires to urban sources. I will present an overview of the MOPITT mission and show recent science results using MOPITT CO data, including highlights on how MOPITT data are assimilated for understanding model chemistry and emissions. I will also discuss the future of satellite CO observations.

Title:

OMAO and NOAA Corps 101
Speaker: Cathy Martin and Bryan Begun

Captain Catherine Martin is a NOAA Corps officer and the Executive Director for NOAA Boulder Laboratories. Previous positions include Chief of Staff at NOAA Headquarters and Chief of Operations at the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center in Lakeland, Florida. CAPT Martin has fifteen years of operational flying including 100+ hurricane eye-wall penetrations on the WP-3D Orion Hurricane Hunters. CAPT Martin earned bachelor's degrees from the Florida Institute of Technology in Aviation Management and Aviation Meteorology.

Lieutenant commander Bryan Begun is a NOAA Corps officer and an Executive Officer for NCEI's Center Coasts, Oceans, and Geophysics in Boulder. LCDR Begun has spent over 700 days underway at sea, largely on the NOAA ships Ronald H. Brown and Bell M. Shimada. LCDR Begun earned a bachelor's degree from University of California at Davis in Marine Biology and is currently pursuing an MBA at CU Boulder.

Date/Time: Thursday, October 10, 2019 03:00 PM
Location: David Skaggs Research Center, GC402 (multi-purpose room)
Abstract
NOAA's fleet of ships and aircraft are operated by the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO). These highly specialized assets are used by NOAA scientists and the broader research scientific community to gather environmental data vital to the nation's economic security, the safety of citizens, and the understanding, protection, and management of our natural resources. The NOAA Corps is one of the seven uniformed services who serve to provide the technical and operational expertise, dynamic leadership, and breath of experience to optimize NOAA's missions through planning, preparation, and execution.

Title:

The 20 gigaton carbon removal industry: Innovation and engineering for economy-wide negative emissions system.
Speaker: David Babson
Dr. David Babson is a Program Director at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA‑E), which works to advance high-potential, high-impact energy technologies that are too early for private-sector investment. His focus at ARPA-E includes bioenergy, agricultural systems innovation, and carbon management. Prior to joining ARPA-E, Dr. Babson was the Senior Advisor for Renewable Energy, Natural Resources, and the Environment in the Office of the Chief Scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Prior to joining the USDA, Babson was a Technology Manager in the Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO). Before BETO, Dr. Babson advocated for sustainable transportation solutions as a Senior Fuels Engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Babson earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from Rutgers University.
Date/Time: Thursday, October 17, 2019 03:00 PM
Location: David Skaggs Research Center, GC402 (multi-purpose room)
Abstract
Recent reports highlight the importance of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and negative emissions technologies (NETs) in limiting global temperature increases resulting from anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Projections for the emissions pathways to limit global warming to 2° C include substantial contributions from CDR beginning well before the estimated net global negative emissions crossover point, which is expected just beyond mid-century. In fact, the predicted need for negative emissions capacity reaches 10 gigatons per year by midcentury and at least 20 gigatons per year by 21001. Establishing robust, energy efficient, and low-cost CDR strategies are essential to enable new carbon management industries that would allow for the ambitious GHG mitigation required to avoid the risks associated with global warming above 20 C outlined in the IPCC report2. Advanced research in a number of areas will be necessary to bring down the cost and energy intensity of CDR technologies to present the possibility of establishing new CO2 feedstock and negative emissions pathway opportunities. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) is interested in promoting a number of technologies to both better manage carbon in the economy and actively remove it from the atmosphere in order to establish an economy that is, itself, a tool for managing carbon and mitigating climate change. This presentation will outline the various technology opportunities and unique strategies being considered for carbon management and negative emissions, and it will describe how a future negative emissions industry of necessary scale could evolve as a function of low-cost advanced negative emissions pathways being established.

Title:

Resolving the Dust Bowl Paradox of Grassland Responses to Extreme Drought
Speaker: Alan Knapp, Colorado State University
Dr. Alan Knapp is an ecosystem ecologist in the Biology Department at Colorado State University. Prior to joining the faculty at CSU 15 years ago, we was a professor at Kansas State University for over 15 years. Much of Dr. Knapp's research in grassland ecology has been conducted at the Konza Prairie Long-Term Ecological Research site, in addition to field sites around the world including Kruger National Park in South Africa and the Mongolian steppe. He is a fellow of the Ecological Society of America and the American Geophysical Union, honored for his "fundamental contributions to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying ecosystem responses to climatic variability and extremity".
Date/Time: Tuesday, November 5, 2019 03:00 PM
Location: David Skaggs Research Center, GC402 (multi-purpose room)
Abstract
During the 1930’s Dust Bowl drought, a decade of low rainfall and high temperatures in the central United States, widespread increases of species with the C3 photosynthetic pathway were observed in grasslands formerly dominated by C4 grasses. An increase in C3 species during hot, dry conditions is inconsistent with the predominant global distribution of C3 grasslands at cooler, high latitudes, as well as the generally lower thermal optima for photosynthesis and less efficient water use for C3 vs. C4 pathways. Understanding the mechanism for this response is important because vegetation canopies dominated by plants with C3 vs. C4 photosynthesis differ fundamentally in both pattern and magnitude of biosphere- atmosphere exchanges of carbon, water, and energy. We experimentally imposed four years of extreme drought in native C4 and C3-dominated grasslands in Kansas and Wyoming and, consistent with Dust Bowl observations, documented 3-5-fold increases in C3 relative to C4 grass biomass. To resolve this paradox, we show that under normal climate conditions in the central US, C4 grass biomass is greatest where precipitation inputs and temperature are strongly and positively related (warmer months are wetter months). In contrast, C3 grasses flourish where precipitation is less coupled to warm temperatures. We then analyzed historic climate records and find that the positive temperature-precipitation relationships that favor C4 grasses are consistently weakened by extreme drought. Thus, although extreme drought reduces precipitation overall, the proportion of precipitation in cooler months increases, enabling C3 grasses to increase. The frequency and duration of extreme drought in North America and globally is expected to increase with climate warming. To date, most attention has been focused on the severity of climate extremes, but our findings highlight how extreme drought can also alter precipitation seasonality, shift ecosystem phenology and lead to carbon cycle consequences that differ dramatically from those expected from the traits of C3 and C4 species.

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