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Research Scholar

Earth System Processes and Interactions Division

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email meiyun.lin@noaa.gov

phone (609) 452-6500

Focus Areas:

  • Air quality – climate interactions across global to urban scales
  • Land-biosphere feedbacks in a changing climate
  • Fire and smoke at the wildland – urban interface
  • Seasonal air quality forecasting
  • Long-range pollution transport

Meiyun Lin

Meiyun Lin started federal service as a Physical Research Scientist at NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in September 2021. From June 2010 to September 2021, she was a Research Scholar at NOAA GFDL and Princeton University’s Cooperative Institute for Modeling the Earth System. Lin’s research seeks to advance knowledge on the interactions of air quality with weather and climate to inform public policy. Specifically, her current research focuses on land-biosphere feedbacks to air quality extremes in a changing climate, such as reductions in ozone removal by drought-stressed vegetation, increases in wildfire and dust emissions, and changes in BVOC emissions from vegetation. She is currently leading a cross-division effort at GFDL to build a variable-resolution global chemistry-climate model for research at the nexus of U.S. climate and air quality extremes. Her past research has examined how climate variability and change modulates intercontinental pollution transport, intrusions of stratospheric ozone deep into the troposphere, and their impacts on surface air quality. Lin earned her Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo (2008) and completed her postdoctoral work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2008-2010).

Lin advises postdocs and interns for Princeton University’s AOS program.

Recent Publication Highlights

Tripling of Western U.S. Particulate Pollution from Wildfires in a Warming Climate

Article by Xie and Lin et al. in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (2022)

  • Smoke pollution from Western US wildfires would double to triple by 2100 under intermediate- and low-mitigation climate scenarios.
  • The increase is reduced to 40-60% in a strong-mitigation scenario with global CO2 emissions cut to net zero around 2075, highlighting the co-benefits of climate mitigation on air quality.
  • Without strong climate change mitigation,  events like the 2020 wildfire season could recur every 5 years in the late 21st century.

Publicity: AGU EOS, Court House News, Inside Climate News, Arts TECHNICA


Summer PM2.5 pollution extremes caused by wildfires over the western United States during 2017-2018.

Article by Xie and Lin et al. in Geophys. Res. Lett. (2020)

  • Large inter-annual variations of western U.S. fine particulate pollution in summer driven by regional and distant fires.
  • Widespread wildfires and stagnation in 2017–2018 caused fine particulate extremes to exceed 2 standard deviations over long-term averages.
  • Observations and model analyses indicate fourfold to fivefold underestimate of aerosol emissions from the widely used Global Fire Emissions Database.

Vegetation feedbacks during drought exacerbate ozone air pollution extremes in Europe.

Article by Meiyun Lin et al. in Nature Climate Change (2020)

This study highlights an under-appreciated “climate penalty” feedback mechanism – namely, substantial reductions of ozone uptake by water-stressed vegetation – as a missing piece to the puzzle of why European ozone pollution episodes have not decreased in recent decades, despite marked reductions in regional emissions of ozone precursors due to regulatory changes.

Publicity: Princeton News | News and Views on Nature

Accounting for vegetation feedbacks leads to a three-fold increase in high-ozone events above 80 parts per billion.

Sensitivity of ozone deposition to ecosystem-atmosphere interactions.

Meiyun Lin et al. in Global Biogeochem. Cycles (2019)

  • Observational analysis reveals drought stress causing 50% reduction of ozone deposition velocities.
  • Ecosystem-atmosphere interactions modulate ozone deposition, with significant implications for surface ozone variability and extreme events.
  • Dynamic vegetation land models with an interactive dry deposition scheme yield mechanistic insights.

PDF Full Text | Supporting Info


US surface ozone trends and extremes from 1980 to 2014: Quantifying the roles of rising Asian emissions, domestic controls, wildfires, and climate.

Article by Meiyun Lin et al. in Atmos. Chem. Phys. (2017)

  • The tripling of Asian NOx emissions since 1990 outpaces the benefits of 50% reductions in US domestic emissions, thereby raising surface ozone in WUS rural areas during spring.
  • In the EUS, the ozone decreases driven by regional NOx controls were more pronounced in the Southeast, where the seasonal onset of isoprene emissions from vegetation and NOx-sensitive ozone production occurs earlier.
  • More frequent hot extremes and rising isoprene emissions from vegetation since 1990 would have worsened summer ozone extremes in the EUS, if regional NOx emissions did not decline.

PDF Full Text | Supporting Info

Publicity: Princeton News | NOAA Research | GFDL Research Highlight


Is springtime ozone in the free troposphere over western North America in fact increasing over 1995-2008?

Article by Meiyun Lin et al. in Geophy. Res. Lett. (2015)

Revisiting the analysis of Cooper et al. [Nature, 2010], we show that sampling biases can substantially influence calculated trends of ozone in the free troposphere over western N. America. The model co-sampled in space and time with observations reproduces the observed ozone trend (0.65±0.32 ppb yr-1) over 1995-2008 (in simulations either with or without time-varying emissions), whereas the ‘true average’ with continuous temporal and spatial sampling indicates an insignificant trend (0.25±0.32 ppb yr-1). Attempt to attribute observed ozone trends to changes in human-induced emissions requires consideration of climate variability.

PDF Full Text | Supporting Info


Climate variability modulates western US ozone air quality via deep stratospheric intrusions

Article by Meiyun Lin et al. in Nature Communications (2015). NOAA News Release

Exposure to ozone is harmful to human and plant health. There is mounting evidence that intrusions of stratospheric ozone deep into the troposphere can elevate western US surface ozone to unhealthy levels during late spring. This study reveals a connection between these intrusion events in US West and La Niña, an ocean-atmosphere phenomena that affects global weather patterns. Recognizing this link offers an opportunity to forecast ozone several months in advance, which would help western US air quality managers prepare to track these events for public health alert. Identifying these events also have implications for attaining the US national ozone standard.

PDF Full Text | Supplemental Information

Publicity: Princeton Journal Watch | AAAS EurekAlert! | GFDL Research Highlight


Tropospheric ozone: Decadal dynamics

Article by Meiyun Lin et al. in Nature Geoscience (2014). Nature Geoscience News & Views

Tropospheric ozone is a greenhouse gas, biological irritant, and significant source of highly reactive hydroxyl radicals. The response of tropospheric ozone to changing atmospheric circulation is poorly understood. This paper shows that over the past four decades, shifts in atmospheric circulation have played a key role in the autumnal ozone increase and the absence of spring ozone change over Hawaii by modulating pollution transport from Asia. This finding implies a need to consider decade-long variability in climate when detecting and attributing trends in tropospheric ozone levels to changes in human-induced emissions.

PDF Full Text | Supplemental Information

Publicity: Princeton Journal Watch | ScienceDaily | other media outlets


Springtime high-ozone events in Western U.S. surface air: Role of stratospheric intrusions.

Article by Meiyun Lin et al. in J. Geophys. Res.

Current guidelines from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dictate that surface-level air should have no more than 70 ppbv of ozone for 8-hour average. This study found that intrusions of ozone from the stratosphere can episodically increase surface ozone levels by 20-40 ppbv, pushing observed ozone to exceed the EPA limit at western U.S. high-altitude regions during spring. This finding suggests that stratospheric influence may pose challenges for western states to achieve more stringent ozone air quality standards if such “exceptional events” beyond the control of domestic air agencies are not properly screened out.

PDF Full Text | Supplemental Information | Visualization

Publicity: JGR most popular articles | US House Environmental Hearing


Western U.S. Air Quality: Imported ozone pollution

Article by Meiyun Lin et al. in J. Geophys. Res.

As Asian countries develop, they are emitting more ozone precursors that pollute surface-level air. This study finds that Asian pollution can contribute as much as 20% of total ozone during springtime pollution episodes observed in western U.S. surface air. NASA satellite observations of carbon monoxide can be used to predict when incoming plumes of polluted air might affect western air quality, one to three days ahead of time. (Read more)

PDF Full Text | Supplemental Info | Visualization

Publicity: Science Magazine |Nature News |AGU Editors’ Highlight

JGR’s top 1 most cited article in year 2012