Climate Change

The third research domain recognizes explicitly that chemistry, radiation and dynamics are closely linked in the Earth's climate system. Development of a research strategy in any one of them quickly entrains all of them. This is true not only in a theoretical sense and from a mechanistic perspective, but also at the level of instrument development, technical innovation, and field deployment. The primary objective is:

• Is the climate of the Earth changing and, if it is, what variables are changing?
• What mechanisms are responsible for these observed changes?

Within this objective, several questions emerge:

• What mechanisms control the distribution of water vapor in the middle and upper troposphere?
• What mechanisms control the transport of radiation in the atmosphere, including molecular-level processes involving water, mechanisms controlling phase transitions in multicomponent systems and the formation of subvisible cirrus in the tropics, mid latitudes, and high latitudes?
• What mechanisms control the exchange of material between the stratosphere and troposphere?

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Chemical Reactivity

Strat/Trop Chemistry

Climate Change

• Radiometer
• Water Vapor

• CiREX