Project Grant 2135749

This $616,131 National Science Foundation project grant will fund the development of observation-based metrics to evaluate global atmospheric chemistry models at the University of California, Irvine through January 2025. As part of its Geosciences program, which supports basic research in atmospheric, earth, and ocean sciences, the NSF aims to strengthen the scientific enterprise's understanding of the integrated Earth system. Under this award, the university will design, test, and document a new or revised set of high-order gas-phase chemistry metrics and inter-relationships between species, budgets, perturbations, and seasonal/interannual transport patterns. A graduate student will participate. The metrics suite will assist with climate model development and planning for the next chemistry model intercomparison project under the 7th IPCC assessment by documenting improvements in next-generation models and the traceability of policy-relevant projections. Issues addressed include chemical composition heterogeneity; tropospheric ozone and methane budgets; feedbacks and sensitivities; and stratospheric influences on the troposphere and surface. The results should expand fundamental knowledge of atmospheric chemistry and transport processes.