This is a past event.

Environmental Engineering Graduate Seminar

Speaker: Xin Xi, Research Professor, Physics, Michigan Technological University

Abstract:
Mineral dust, a by-product of aeolian processes in dryland regions, is the largest terrestrial source of particulate matter to the atmosphere, and has a wide range of environmental and climatic impact around the globe. The intensity of dust production is linked to climate variations from seasonal to millennial scales, and has been increasingly affected by anthropogenic activities, such as cultivation, overgrazing, and water diversion. For this seminar, Dr. Xi will talk about the current status and remaining challenges in model-based estimation of global dust emission and its anthropogenic fraction, followed by an investigation of the dust variability in the post-Soviet Central Asia region, using a physically based modeling system and synop-tic and remote sensing observations. The research questions for this study include: 1) How is dust connected to large-scale climate variability (El Nino)? 2) Are there any dust trends in the past decade? 3) How much dust emission is attributable to agricultural activities?

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Xin Xi got his BS in Geoinformatics (GIS) from Beijing Normal University (2007), and PhD in Atmospheric Science from Georgia Institute of Technology (2014). He has worked in NASA and NOAA on a number of projects, before his appointment as a research assistant professor at Michigan Tech this fall. Dr. Xi’s research focuses on the use of atmospheric models and remote sensing data to study the life cycle of atmospheric aerosols and their impact on the climate and air quality.