The interactions between climate and atmospheric chemistry are an important area of research in reducing uncertainties in current estimates of aerosol direct and indirect radiative forcing. A unified global-through-urban fully-coupled online climate and chemistry model provides an excellent model framework to accurately simulate such interactions.  Such a unified online model is being developed at North Carolina State University based on the U.S. NCAR¿s Global Weather Research and Forecasting and the U.S. NOAA mesoscale WRF with Chemistry (referred to as GU-WRF/Chem).  This presentation will highlight recent model development toward GU-WRF/Chem, along with several case studies on regional/global scales and major challenges in simulating air quality and climate/meteorology feedbacks.

Short Biography

Dr. Zhang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences at North Carolina State University (NCSU).  Prior to joining NCSU in August 2003, Dr. Zhang has more than 10 years working experience in governmental research laboratories and industry.  She holds a Ph.D. degree in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from the University of Iowa and a B.S. degree in Environmental Engineering from Tsinghua University, China.   Her research interests include air pollution modeling and assessment, atmospheric chemistry and transport,  cloud/aerosol chemistry and microphysics, sensitivity and uncertainty analysis, and interactions among chemistry, meteorology, and climate change.  She has led or contributed to the development, application, evaluation, and improvement of several three-dimensional models on urban, regional, and global scales including STEM III, GChM, MIRAGE, SCICHEM, CMAQ, CMAQ-MADRID, CAMx, MM5, and WRF/Chem.  Dr. Zhang was a recipient of the National Science Foundation Career Award in Atmospheric Chemistry in 2004.  She currently serves on several committees including the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Atmospheric Chemistry Committee and the American Association for Aerosol Research Membership Committee.  She has authored or co-authored about 40 peer-reviewed journal publications and over 150 conference presentations and invited seminars.  She is a member of A&WMA, AAAR, AGU, AMS, and Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society.