GFDL - Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory

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Atmospheric Physics, Chemistry and Climate


Mission

The mission of the Atmospheric Physics, Chemistry and Climate group is to develop and employ computer models -- alongside a wide range of atmospheric chemical and meteorological measurements -- to advance our understanding of the earth's past, present, and future atmospheric climate and composition.

Research Highlights


Study by Y. Fang and co-authors on CO export from North-East America during passage of cyclone

While the export of pollutants from the United States exhibits notable variability from day to day and is often considered to be “episodic,” the contribution of strong daily export events to total export has not been quantified. In our study, we apply a purely statistical method to carbon monoxide (CO) daily fluxes from the United States simulated by MOZART to identify strong export events..  We find that strong export days are preferentially associated with migratory mid-latitude cyclones, supporting the previous hypothesis that strong export events are caused by passages of cyclones. However, we also find that export during days without cyclone passages contributes over one third  to the total U.S. export across the northeast boundary (red lines in figure below). Therefore, focusing exclusively on outflow plumes during cyclone passages, although critical for understanding the strong transport events, provides an incomplete picture of total U.S. pollutant export. For a detailed description and evaluation of this study, please refer to Fang, Y., A. M. Fiore, L. W. Horowitz, A. Gnanadesikan, H. Levy, Y. Hu, and A. G. Russell (2009), Estimating the contribution of strong daily export events to total pollutant export from the United States in summer, J. Geophys. Res., doi: 10.1029/2008JD010946.



(a) Negative surface pressure anomalies (hPa) associated with strong export days.  Strong export days are defined as those days when the simulated CO flux through the northeast boundary exceeded the mean plus one standard deviation of a 15 day moving average “background” flux based on 15 summers (1990-2004).   The figure illustrates that these days were preferentially associated with migratory mid-latitude cyclones. Strong export occurred on 16% of the summer days and only contributed 25% of the total summertime CO export across the northeast boundary shown as the red lines....(more)





Atmospheric Physics

Analysis and modeling of physical processes in the atmosphere

Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics

Analysis and modeling of atmospheric composition and dynamics

Atmospheric Climate

Regional and global climate response and feedbacks to natural and anthropogenic forcing
  • Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean-Land model (CM3)

Air Quality

Study the Impact of changes in emission of trace gas and aerosols, and climate on air quality