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Disputas: Sara Marie Blichner

Ph.d.-kandidat Sara Marie Blichner ved Institutt for geofag, Det matematisk-naturvitenskapelige fakultet, vil forsvare avhandlingen From trees to cloud seeds: Modelling the climate influence of biogenic volatile organic compounds with the Norwegian Earth System Model for graden Philosophiae Doctor.

Foto av Sara Marie Blichner. Foto: Privat

Sara Marie Blichner. Foto: Privat

Disputas og prøveforelesning avholdes digitalt ved bruk av Zoom. Verten av Zoom-møtet vil moderere det tekniske mens disputasleder moderer disputasen. 

Prøveforelesning

Anthropogenic climate change: exploring the drivers and impacts with Earth System Models

Kreeringssammendrag

All vegetasjon frigir organiske gasser, såkalte BVOCer. Disse oksideres i atmosfæren og danner deretter små partikler som påvirker skydannelse og dermed også klimaet. I denne avhandlingen undersøkes denne koblingen mellom BVOC utslipp og klima ved bruk av en klimamodel. I tillegg presenteres en ny måte å modellere dannelsen av nye partikler i atmosfæren.

Hovedfunn

Populærvitenskapelig artikkel om Blichners avhandling:

From trees to cloud seeds: Modelling the climate influence of biogenic volatile organic compounds with the Norwegian Earth System Model

When the climate warms, vegetation may counteract this through the increased emissions of gases, so called biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs). These compounds produce particles in the atmosphere which then act as cloud seeds, resulting in brighter, more reflective and cooling clouds. 

Figure: The BVOC feedback cycles within the climate system. Figure: Sara Marie Blichner.
The BVOC feedback cycles within the climate system. (see a larger verison). Figure: Sara Marie Blichner.

This thesis aims to improve our understanding of how important BVOCs are for the climate and how uncertain the associated processes are. A state-of the-art climate model, the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM), is used and developed for this purpose. Findings show that increased BVOC emissions resulting from a warmer climate, may substantially counteract said warming. In fact as much as 13% of the warming associated with a doubling of CO2 concentrations may be offset in this way.

Furthermore, the thesis presents the development of a new scheme for modelling the formation of new particles from the gas phase in the atmosphere, using a sectional scheme instead of the default modal scheme for the very smallest particles. The new scheme is shown to improve the representation of particles in the model and decreases the estimated cooling from aerosol-cloud interactions since pre-industrial time with 0.13 W/m2 compared to the default model.

Foto og annen informasjon:

Pressefoto: Sara Marie Blichner, portrett; 800px. Foto: Privat

Annet bildemateriale: Figur med beskrivelse og kreditering som spesifisert i artikkelen over, størrelse 1000px.

Publisert 26. mars 2021 10:16 - Sist endret 27. sep. 2023 13:29