This work has two facets - investigations of stratospheric aerosols and studies of polar stratospheric clouds.
We have constructed a numerical model of stratospheric volcanic aerosols over the past two decades. The model was initially one-dimensional, approximating Earth as a vertical column of air. As computational tools have improved we expanded to a two dimensional framework, and now are moving to a fully three-dimensional global model. Currently we are working to combine our microphysical model with the Goddard dynamical models so that detailed predictions can be made. This work will be done by Dr. Michael Mills, a LASP Research Associate, and Mr. Matt Treble, a graduate student. These calculations should aid in the analysis of remote sensing information, as well as being useful to studies of stratospheric ozone loss and to studies of climate change. We are currently on the SAGE II satellite team for global scale modeling of volcanic aerosols and applications to SAGE data analysis. Dr. Toon is also a Co-Investigator on HIRDLS, an instrument that will fly in 2003 as part of NASA's Earth Observing System. My role is to understand aerosol observations from this instrument.
Investigations of polar stratospheric clouds are based upon analyses of data collected during various field programs. The goal is to determine the physical and chemical properties of the clouds so that they can be better represented in models that assess the role of polar clouds in stratospheric ozone loss. This work is supported by several NASA programs. During 1999-2000 NASA's SOLVE program collected a vast array of new data on PSCs. We are currently working with the data set to better understand how large denitrifying particles form,and to determine the composition of these clouds.
