Multi-scale biosphere-atmosphere interactions with human context
Climate change, air pollution, food security
Agriculture + Air Quality
We must understand the impact of industrialization on the environment and how people develop land for their use as human population grows. Agriculture and air quality are both vital to human prosperity, determining what we eat and what we breathe, but their many interactions are often poorly understood. My work explores the characterization of agricultural ammonia emissions and quantification of air quality impacts on global crop production.
Arctic Carbon + Ecosystems
As the planet warms, plants respond by increasing their productivity and carbon uptake, offsetting a greater portion of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions. The feedbacks in this system are especially complex in the Arctic, as warming both increases respiration and degrades permafrost, releasing carbon back into the atmosphere. I am working to understanding these relationships, which will determine the future climate state.
Urban Emissions + COVID-19
Cities are the largest source of anthropogenic carbon gases to the atmosphere. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on-road transportation and economic activity were dramatically reduced in the New York City metro area in early 2020. This scenario provides an ideal opportunity to estimate the carbon emissions of the region which rapidly disappeared and place these changes within the scope of meteorological and non-local source variability.