This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050), will support a collaborative research effort totaling $559,349 over 3 years to better understand the thermal balance of Earth's upper atmosphere. The key products and services to be delivered include:
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Laser-based laboratory studies of collisions between carbon dioxide (CO2) and atomic oxygen to measure the rate and temperature dependence of CO2 vibrational relaxation. This will improve understanding of the dominant process controlling the CO2 15-micron emission, which is a major source of radiative cooling in the middle and upper atmosphere.
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Analysis of ground- and space-based observations to quantify previously unrecognized sources of the CO2 15-micron emission, and integration of these findings with state-of-the-art atmospheric modeling to reevaluate the global thermal balance.
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Educational and formative research experiences for a PhD graduate student, postdoctoral fellows, and undergraduate students, to advance new knowledge relevant to planetary atmospheric radiative energetics, molecular energy transfer, and other interdisciplinary research areas.
The outcomes of this collaborative, multi-disciplinary research project will benefit atmospheric modelers, theoreticians, and remote sensing observationalists, with the potential to improve temperature profile retrievals from satellite data and enhance our understanding of radiative processes in planetary atmospheres.
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