The “detergent of the atmosphere,” the hydroxyl radical (OH), oxidizes and removes numerous trace gases, including pollutants like CO and greenhouse gases like CH4. However, the reactive nature and short lifetime of OH make it highly variable in time and space, difficult to measure on broad scales, and notoriously difficult to constrain across air quality and climate models. I will walk through the progression of research aimed at understanding why OH and the resulting methane lifetime differ among models and how current satellite measurements can be utilized to begin to design an indirect OH observing system. I’ll describe a variety of techniques employed to date ranging from 0-D box modeling to machine learning-based evaluation of global models, and across scales ranging from point-by-point comparisons of aircraft data to global satellite observations spanning decades.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://illinois.zoom.us/j/88653828268?pwd=cUtOUDQxZTZNSFJGTGl5WXo1VEEyQT09
Meeting ID: 886 5382 8268
Password: 817814
Speaker Bio
Julie Nicely is an Assistant Research Scientist with the University of Maryland Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center and the Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Her research focuses on using observations and models to improve our understanding of the chemistry that takes place in Earth's atmosphere. Specifically, she is interested in tropospheric chemistry and how it influences climate and composition.
