Christine Wiedinmyer

Scientist I
TIIMES - ACD
BEACHON & BGS

Contact Information:
PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000
Office: FL0-3154
Telephone: 303-497-1414
Email: christin@ucar.edu
Home Page

Project Summary:

Wiedinmyer’s research focuses on the emissions of particles and gases from the biosphere, and how these impact atmospheric processes, specifically chemistry. In the recent past, she has led the development of a fire emissions model for North America for use by atmospheric modelers (Wiedinmyer et al., 2006) and contributed to the development of a new biogenic emissions model, MEGAN (Guenther et al., 2006). These emission estimates have been used with other models to evaluate the impact of these emissions on chemistry and meteorological processes.

Click on picture to view the entire figure

 

Figure 1: Estimated biogenic sesquiterpene emissions estimated with MEGAN (July 2001 monthly average. (Sakulyanontvittaya et al., ES&T, submitted 09/2007)

In the past fiscal year, several advances have been made in terms of the ability to model emissions, chemistry and meteorology. MEGAN has been included within the WRF-chem framework, so that biogenic emissions can be simulated online with atmospheric chemistry and meteorology. Preliminary studies have been performed to evaluate the direct impact of aerosols on clouds, and further, the impact on biogenic emissions (S. Chung, J. Fast, and C. Wiedinmyer). With X. Jiang and F. Chen and the use of the WRF-chem model, the impact of future land cover change and climate on local meteorology and chemistry was investigated for Houston Texas. Implementation of sesquiterpene emissions within MEGAN and chemical transport models has been completed, and the amount of secondary organic aerosol formed from these compounds in the US is being evaluated (T. Sakulyanontvittaya et al.).

Click on picture to view the entire figure

 

Figure 2: CO2 emissions from fires for several US states for 5 years. These figures highlight the spatial and temporal variation in these emissions. (Wiedinmyer and Neff, submitted CB&M, August 2007).

Emissions of mercury (Wiedinmyer and Friedli, ES&T, 2007) and CO2 (C. Wiedinmyer and J. Neff) from fires across the US have been estimated using the North American Fire Emissions Model, and these emissions are addressed in terms of the implications of these emissions with regard to policy applications.  Investigations of future climate and land cover changes were performed for the continental US with collaborators from Washington State University, University of Washington and the US Forest Service.

Future work will continue to evaluate the impact of emissions from the biosphere (biogenic emissions and emissions from fires) on atmospheric processes. With the use of WRF-chem, the interactions between the biosphere and the atmosphere will be more thoroughly investigated. Continued evaluation of land use and climate change on emissions and atmospheric processes on a regional scale will be completed. Improvements in emissions modeling will be continued, coupled with a detailed fire emissions model intercomparison (J. Al-Saadi et al.).

Community Service:

• Associate Editor: Journal of Geophysical Research- Atmospheres
• Leadership board member, Earth Science Women's Network (ESWN), 2002-present
• Reviewer: Journal of Geophysical Research- Atmospheres; Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Atmospheric Environment, Geophysical Research Letters, Environmental Science & Technology, UK National Environment Research Council, U.S. EPA, U.S. Department of Defense
• Nominated Co-Chair for 2011 Gordon Research Conference: Biogenic Hydrocarbons and the Atmosphere
• Organizing Committee member, Biogenic Secondary Organic Aerosol Workshop series for early career US and Nordic Scientists
• Panel member - EPA Panel Review: Coarse particles and Health Effects, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• Guest Lecturer: Air Pollution Control, Controls of Sulfur Dioxide (MCEN4131/5131 instructor Jana Milford) University of Colorado at Boulder, April 2007
• Advisor on Graduate Research: Mike Feldman, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX USA
• Advisor on Graduate Research: Barron Henderson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC USA
• Advisor on Graduate Research: Xiaoyan Jiang, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX USA
• Advisor on Graduate Research: Tanarit Sakulyanontvittaya, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO USA
• Thesis Committee: Mike Feldman, , PhD, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX USA
• Thesis Committee: Tanarit Sakulyanontvittaya, , PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO USA
• K-12 Activiy: The Nitrogen Cycle Game, Activity leader at the Girls Exploring Science, Engineering and Technology (GESET) Symposium, Denver, CO, April 2007
• NCAR Undergraduate Leadership Workshop, Biocomplexity and Atmospheric Chemistry, Boulder, CO, June 2007
• Science at NCAR: from weather to climate, lecture at the Western Regional Retired FBI Agents luncheon, Golden USA, February 2007

Presentations:

• The Influence of Aerosols on Biogenic Emissions: Case Studies for (1) Mexico and (2) Eastern U.S., San Francisco USA, December 2006
• Aerosols and the Terrestrial Biosphere: Emissions, Processes, and Feedbacks, Boulder USA, January 2007
• Impacts of aerosols on meteorology and biogenic emissions, Ventura USA, February 2007
• Aerosols and the Terrestrial Biosphere: Emissions, Processing and Feedbacks, Chapel Hill USA, March 2007
• Aerosols and the Terrestrial Biosphere: Emissions, Processing and Feedbacks, Austin USA, August 2007
• Estimating Emissions from Vegetation for Air Quality Modeling: Methods and Challenges, Austin USA, August 2007

TIIMES External Collaborators:

David Allen, University of Texas at Austin
Jassim Al-Saadi, Langley Research Center (LARC) - NASA
Mike Barna, National Parks Service
Jesse Bash, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Annmarie Carlton, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), EPA
Jack Chen, Washington State University
Serena Chung, Washington State University
Jerome Fast, Department of Energy - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Mike Feldman, University of Texas at Austin
Arlene Fiore, Princeton, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-GFDL
Chris Geron, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Rob J. Griffin, University of New Hampshire
Gannet Hallar, Desert Research Institute
Barron Henderson, University of North Carolina
Xioayan Jiang, University of Texas at Austin
Jesse Kroll, Aerodyne
Brian Lamb, Washington State University
Wenfang Lei, Massachussets Institute of Technology
Elena McDonald-Buller, University of Texas at Austin
Jana Milford, University of Colorado
Vaishali Naik, Princeton, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-GFDL
Jason Neff, University of Colorado
Paul Palmer, University of Edinburgh
George Poulliot, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Shelley Pressley, Washington State University
Brad Quayle, United States Forest Service (USFS) - Remote Sensing Applications Center
Tanarit Sakulyanontvittaya, University of Colorado
Chris Schmidt, University of Wisconsin
Amber Soja, Langley Research Center (LARC) - NASA
Allison Steiner, University of Michigan
Dave Theobald, Colorado State University
Will Vizuete, University of North Carolina
Xiaoyang Zhang, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NESDIS

Publications:

Wiedinmyer, C., H. Friedli, 2007: Mercury Emission Estimates from Fires: An Initial Inventory for the United States. Environ. Sci. Technol., doi: 10.1021/es071289o.

Wiedinmyer, C.,  J. Neff, 2007: CO2 emissions from fires in the U.S.: Implications for policy. Carbon Balance and Management, 2:10.

Matsunaga, S. N., A. B. Guenther, Y. Izawa, C. Wiedinmyer, J. P. Greenberg, K. Kawamura, 2007: Importance of wet precipitation as a removal and transport process for atmospheric water soluble carbonyls. Atmos. Environ., 41, 790-796, doi: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2006.08.054.

Hodzic, A., S. Madronich, B. Bohn, S. Massie, L. Menut, C. Wiedinmyer, 2007: Wildfire particulate matter in Europe during summer 2003: meso-scale modeling of smoke emissions, transport and radiative effects. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 7, 4043-4064.

Fast, J. D., B. deFoy, F. Acevedo Rosas, E. Caetano, G. Carmichael, L. Emmons, D. McKenna, M. Mena, W. Skamarock, X. Tie, R. L. Coulter, J. C. Barnard, C. Wiedinmyer, S. Madronich, 2007: A meteorological overview of the MILAGRO field campaigns. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 7, 2233-2257.

Helmig, D., J. Ortega, T. Duhl, D. Tanner, A. Guenther, P. Harley, C. Wiedinmyer, J. Milford, T. Sakulyanontvittaya, 2007: Sesquiterpene emissions from Pine Trees - Identifications, Emission Rates and Flux Estimates for the Contiguous United States. Environ. Sci. Technol., 41, 1545 -1553, doi: 10.1021/es0618907.