Atmosphere-Surface Interactions
Many fundamental issues in climate, environmental, geological, and ecological studies require an in-depth knowledge of the rates and forms of exchange of chemical species, mass, and energy between the atmosphere and the earth's surface.
Such exchanges are relevant over a large range of spatial and temporal scales, e.g., from the rapid turnover times, hours to days, of volatile organic carbon emissions within a forest canopy to incremental changes in global concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases and their feedbacks to climate over tens of millions of years.
Knowledge of the mechanisms governing atmosphere-surface interactions is essential to our understanding of both modern and geologic record and will permit us to speculate about how perturbations to the earth system are potentially mitigated or amplified by feedbacks within that system.
Affiliated Faculty & Research Area
| Brenda Bowen | Sedimentary geology and geochemistry, formation and evolution of redbeds, diagenesis and fluid flow, basin evolution, geologic remote sensing, Mars geology and analog research |
| Gabe Bowen | Stable isotope geochemistry, paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental reconstruction, isotope hydrology, isotope ecology, human impacts on environmental and ecological systems, isotope forensic |
| Indrajeet Chaubey | Ecohydrologic processes affecting fate and transport of sediment, nutrients, and pesticides from various land use activities and developing watershed management strategies to improve water quality |
| Tim Filley | Molecular, stable-isotope biogeochemistry of soils and sediments |
| Kevin Gurney | Global carbon cycle, inverse modeling and data assimilation, biogeochemistry, fossil fuel CO2 emissions estimation, climate-vegetation feedbacks, climate change |
| Jennifer Haase | Remote sensing studies of atmospheric water vapor using GPS measurements from ground-based, airborne, and spaceborne platforms for a better understanding of the water cycle in a changing environement |
| Jon Harbor | Hydrologic impacts of land use change, environmental management, environmental education, Quaternary geology and glacial geomorphology |
| Matt Huber | Dynamics of past, present, and future climates, ocean-atmosphere interactions, tracer transport |
| Greg Michalski | Stable isotope biogeochemistry, nitrogen deposition, atmospheric chemistry, environmental chemistry, nutrients in extreme environments, paleoclimate proxies |
| Dev Niyogi | Remote sensing of biosphere, stomatal conductance-photosynthesis models, gaseous deposition and bidirectional exchange, aerosol impacts on terrestrial carbon-water cycle |
| James Ogg | Earth history (past 600 million years), Paleooceanography, paleoclimate cycles, marine geology, paleomagnetics |
| Paul Shepson | Atmospheric chemistry, tropospheric ozone and photochemical smog, atmospheric chemical measurements, modeling of tropospheric photochemistry, air-surface interactions in the Arctic |
| Yuch-Ning Shieh | Stable isotope geochemistry, oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon isotopes in igneous and metamorphic petrology, sulfur isotopes in coal and mineral deposits |
| Wen-Yih Sun | Geofluid dynamics, numerical modeling of mesoscale meterology and regional climate boundary layer meteorology, land-atmosphere and air-sea interactions, surface hydrology |
| Qianlai Zhuang | Ecosystem dynamics, biogeochemical cycling, greenhouse gases, ecological and ecosystem modeling |
| Bill Zinsmeister | Paleontology, stratigraphy, biostratigraphy, biogeography, field geology |
Atmospheric Science Related Groups:
- Climate & Extreme Weather (CLEW)
Focuses on Climate and Extreme Weather, which seeks to: Understand and predict the physical and statistical behavior of extreme weather and climate events.
Read More - Cloud Microphysics Group
Travel to different regions of the world in order to take detailed observations of the cloud properties; we also simulate these clouds using a variety of models on workstations and high-speed computers.
Read More - Purdue Climate Change Research Center (PCCRC)
Chartered in 2004, the PCCRC is a world-class multidisciplinary research center focused on interrelated aspects of climate change, its impacts, and mitigation.
Read More - Mesoscale Convection & Tornado Group
The group is dedicated to understanding the dynamical and physical structure of marine convective boundary layers that form in cold air outbreaks over relatively warmer water, as well as deep convective systems over land that develop into supercell tornadic thunderstorms.
Read More - Purdue Mesoscale Modeling Lab (PMML)
The Purdue Mesoscale Modeling Laboratory (PMML) is developing the Purdue Regional Climate Model (PRCM).
Read More - Severe Weather Research Group
This group conducts basic and applied research on thunderstorms and associated weather hazards.
Read More