4:00 pm | 210 ASB
Greenhouse gases and air quality – two key environmental issues of our time – are coupled at multiple scales. At the most basic level, greenhouse gases and air quality-relevant pollutants are co-emitted at the scale of tailpipes. At regional to global scales, climate change influences the sources of pollutants, which, in turn, impact the fluxes of greenhouse gases.
My research at the University of Utah seeks to understand this nexus by combining both observational and modeling approaches, with a strong focus on the Western U.S. This is an area where wildfire activity, dust events, unconventional energy development, complex terrain, climate change, and rapid population growth all intersect to create compelling scientific, environmental, and societal issues that remain to be answered. These issues will be introduced in my talk, highlighting the greenhouse gas-air quality linkages from the urban scale near the Salt Lake area to the regional scale of the Western U.S.