Innovative Research Program Projects, 2006

Abrupt Climate Change

Possibility of Abrupt Climate Change in the Next Few Decades: This investigator will perform several 100-year integrations of two global atmospheric general circulation models(GCMs) with prescribed ocean sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the tropics and with coupling to a simple mixed layer ocean model elsewhere.

Aerosol Optical Properties
Highly resolved wavelength dependencies of aerosol optical properties in the shortwave spectrum: The objective of this project is to measure the wavelength dependence of aerosol optical properties at high spectral resolution across the solar spectrum.

Groundwater and Climate
Is the Ground Drying up in South Platte? Despite the important role of groundwater in the basin there are virtually no efforts in understanding long-term behavior of the groundwater system within the context of climate variations.

Microbial Ecology and Atmospheric Chemistry
VOC production by soil microorganisms: Linking microbial ecology and atmospheric chemistry: The goal of this study is to characterize the types and quantities of volatile organic carbon compounds (VOCs) produced by soil microorganisms.

Oxidized Atmospheric Organics
Sunlight initiated chemistry by low energy vibrational overtone excitation of oxidized organics in the atmosphere: In a collaboration between experiment and theory, the investigators will investigate a new paradigm for sun light initiated chemical reactions occurring by low energy by excitation of vibrational overtones in the ground electronic state.

Phytoplankton and Ocean Circulation
Can phytoplankton change SST and upper ocean circulation? Specific objectives of this research are 1) to determine the extent to which variability of SSTs and currents in ocean models are improved by the new penetrative solar radiation calculation from the satellite-derived ocean color data, and 2) To quantify the impact of space and time variations of penetrative solar radiation on upper ocean variabilities ranging from diurnal to seasonal time scales.