Mailing Address:
NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory
325 Broadway R/GML
Boulder CO 80305-3328
Phone: 303-497-6672
Email: Patrick.Sheridan@noaa.gov
Doctor of Philosophy, Analytical, Nuclear and Environmental Chemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 1986
Bachelor of Science, Chemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 1980
As Program Lead of the Global Monitoring Laboratory Aerosol Program, Dr. Sheridan's primary responsibility is to oversee the operation and data flow of the global NOAA Federated Aerosol Network (NFAN). The goals of this surface aerosol-monitoring program are to characterize means, variability, and trends of climate-forcing properties of different types of aerosols, and to understand the factors that control these properties. The measurements from this network provide critical ground-truth for satellite measurements, as well as key aerosol parameters for global-scale models. The NFAN consists of aerosol monitoring systems located at the NOAA Baseline Observatories and over 30 regional monitoring stations operated around the world by collaborating scientists. In this network, NOAA supplies proven designs and protocols for aerosol sampling infrastructure, standard operating procedures, GML-developed and supported data acquisition, processing, visualization, editing, and archiving software, and technical expertise and troubleshooting assistance. The collaborators cover all of the long-term station costs (e.g., site, power, internet, instruments, technicians, etc.). The result is a long-term, cooperative program with shared data access, making high-quality atmospheric measurements that are directly comparable with the other stations in the network and following established aerosol sampling protocols (e.g., NOAA, GAW).
Current research interests of Dr. Sheridan include working to improve and simplify the measurement of aerosol optical properties to better determine their effects on aerosol radiative forcing, efforts to reduce the uncertainties in aerosol black/brown carbon and aerosol light absorption measurements, investigation of water uptake and cloud nucleation properties of atmospheric aerosols, studying the use and applicability of low-cost atmospheric sensors, and working to better incorporate aerosol measurements from surface monitoring stations into global climate models. Dr. Sheridan currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Journal of Aerosol and Air Quality Research (AAQR). He was presented with the NOAA Administrator's Award in 2006, the Department of Commerce Silver Medal in 2014, and the NOAA Technology Transfer Award in 2015.