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Inferring the Sources Driving Variations in Atmospheric Composition at the Urban Scale using Dense Observational Networks

AMS Seminar Series

Speaker: Alex Turner, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle

Presentation

Seminar Slide Deck (PDF-27MB)

Abstract

Urban areas account for more than 70% of our current fossil fuel emissions, yet our monitoring networks typically only have a handful of instruments within cities to study those sources. This talk will discuss our recent work to characterize atmospheric composition at the urban scale and the processes driving fine-scale variations using models and dense observational networks. Specifically, the talk will use in situ measurements from a dense urban monitoring network to investigate the impact of mobility restrictions in response to COVID-19 on urban CO2 emissions. This will be followed by discussion of our work developing high-fidelity surrogate models for atmospheric transport.

Biography

Photo of Alex Turner
Alex Turner is an atmospheric scientist whose research combines satellite remote sensing, numerical modeling, and Bayesian inference to study interactions between the carbon cycle and atmospheric chemistry. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences. Prior to Washington, he was a Miller Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley where he worked with Ron Cohen and Inez Fung. He completed his PhD in 2017 at Harvard and his BS in 2012 at the University of Colorado.