Dr. Susannah Burrows is an atmospheric physicist, currently working on global climate modeling at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Dr. Burrows received her doctorate in atmospheric physics and meteorology in 2011 from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany. Dr. Burrows has spent time working at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry researching and developing aerosol transport models and model estimates for global bacterial emissions.
Her current work at the PNNL, and in collaboration with researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Scripps/UCSD, has been focused on developing a modeling approach to determine how organic matter originating from phytoplankton can affect sea spray aerosol production and ultimately cloud composition and formation on the ocean surface.
Abstract
Nature’s couplings to the physics of the Earth System
Biology controls the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere at a fundamental level, as the global balance of photosynthesis and respiration sustains the overall concentration of oxygen on geologic time scales. On much shorter time scales, the concentrations of many important trace atmospheric gases such as CO2 and methane, and of aerosol particles that play a role in aerosol-cloud interactions, human health, and global nutrient cycles, are also heavily influenced by biological systems. In Earth System models, we seek to build an integrative and predictive understanding of the processes and interactions most important to answering such important questions about Earth’s present and future. This presentation will discuss interdisciplinary research that has advanced understanding of the impacts of biological systems on clouds, human health, and global biogeochemical cycles, using Earth System Models as an integrative tool.