Global dimming is a decline in the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface. It is caused by atmospheric particulate matter, predominantly sulfate aerosols, which are components of air pollution. Global dimming was observed soon after the first systematic measurements of solar irradiance began in the 1950s. This weakening of visible sunlight proceeded at the rate of 4–5% per decade until the 1980s. During these years, air pollution increased due to post-war industrialization. Solar activity did not vary more than the usual during this period.
Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment. In particular, biogeochemistry is the study of biogeochemical cycles, the cycles of chemical elements such as carbon and nitrogen, and their interactions with and incorporation into living things transported through earth scale biological systems in space and time. The field focuses on chemical cycles which are either driven by or influence biological activity. Particular emphasis is placed on the study of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, iron, and phosphorus cycles. Biogeochemistry is a systems science closely related to systems ecology.
Paul Jozef Crutzen was a Dutch meteorologist and atmospheric chemist. He and Mario Molina and Frank Sherwood Rowland were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 for their work on atmospheric chemistry and specifically for his efforts in studying the formation and decomposition of atmospheric ozone. In addition to studying the ozone layer and climate change, he popularized the term Anthropocene to describe a proposed new epoch in the Quaternary period when human actions have a drastic effect on the Earth. He was also amongst the first few scientists to introduce the idea of a nuclear winter to describe the potential climatic effects stemming from large-scale atmospheric pollution including smoke from forest fires, industrial exhausts, and other sources like oil fires.
The Surface Ocean Lower Atmosphere Study (SOLAS) is a global and multidisciplinary research project dedicated to understanding the key biogeochemical-physical interactions and feedbacks between the ocean and the atmosphere. Further, SOLAS seeks to link ocean-atmosphere interactions with climate and people. Achievements of these goals are essential in order to understand and quantify the role that ocean-atmosphere interactions play in the regulation of climate and global change.
The iron cycle (Fe) is the biogeochemical cycle of iron through the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and lithosphere. While Fe is highly abundant in the Earth's crust, it is less common in oxygenated surface waters. Iron is a key micronutrient in primary productivity, and a limiting nutrient in the Southern ocean, eastern equatorial Pacific, and the subarctic Pacific referred to as High-Nutrient, Low-Chlorophyll (HNLC) regions of the ocean.
The Max Planck Institute for Chemistry is a non-university research institute under the auspices of the Max Planck Society in Mainz, Germany. It was created as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry in 1911 in Berlin.
Coniology or koniology is the study of atmospheric dust and its effects. Samples of dust are often collected by a device called a coniometer. Coniology refers to the observation and contemplation of dust in an atmosphere, but the study of dust may also be applied to dust in space, therefore connecting it to a variety of atmospheric and extraterrestrial topics.
Lynne Talley is a physical oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography known for her research into the large-scale circulation of water masses in the global ocean.
Paul G. Falkowski is an American biological oceanographer in the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His research work focuses on phytoplankton and primary production, and his wider interests include evolution, paleoecology, photosynthesis, biogeochemical cycles and astrobiology.
Judith A. Curry is an American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests include hurricanes, remote sensing, atmospheric modeling, polar climates, air-sea interactions, climate models, and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for atmospheric research. She was a member of the National Research Council's Climate Research Committee, published over a hundred scientific papers, and co-edited several major works. Curry retired from academia in 2017 at age 63, coinciding with her public climate change skepticism.
The contributions of women in climate change have received increasing attention in the early 21st century. Feedback from women and the issues faced by women have been described as "imperative" by the United Nations and "critical" by the Population Reference Bureau. A report by the World Health Organization concluded that incorporating gender-based analysis would "provide more effective climate change mitigation and adaptation."
Meinrat O. Andreae, born in 1949 in Augsburg, is a German biogeochemist. Since 1987, he has worked as Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC) in Mainz.
Sreedharan Krishnakumari Satheesh is an Indian meteorologist and a professor at the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). He holds the chair of the Divecha Centre for Climate Change, a centre under the umbrella of the IISc for researches on climate variability, climate change and their impact on the environment. He is known for his studies on atmospheric aerosols and is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. Indian Academy of Sciences Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Sciences, India as well as The World Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean and Planetary Sciences in 2009. He received the TWAS Prize of The World Academy of Sciences in 2011. In 2018, he received the Infosys Prize, one of the highest monetary awards in India that recognize excellence in science and research, for his work in the field of climate change.
Marine biogeochemical cycles are biogeochemical cycles that occur within marine environments, that is, in the saltwater of seas or oceans or the brackish water of coastal estuaries. These biogeochemical cycles are the pathways chemical substances and elements move through within the marine environment. In addition, substances and elements can be imported into or exported from the marine environment. These imports and exports can occur as exchanges with the atmosphere above, the ocean floor below, or as runoff from the land.
Anne Mee Thompson is an American scientist, who specializes in atmospheric chemistry and climate change. Her work focuses on how human activities have changed the chemistry of the atmosphere, climate forcing, and the Earth's oxidizing capacity. Thompson is an elected fellow of the American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, and AAAS.
Julie LaRoche is a Canadian marine biologist. She is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Marine Microbial Genomics and Biogeochemistry at Dalhousie University.
William Ka Ming Lau is a senior scientist at the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, a research center at the University of Maryland and an adjunct professor of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Maryland. A physicist by training, his research spans over 4 decades covering a wide range of topics in climate dynamics, tropical meteorology, ocean-atmosphere coupling, aerosol-water cycle interactions, and climate variability and change. Lau conducted pioneering research on atmospheric teleconnection, and the global monsoon climate system. He discovered the aerosol-monsoon regional feedback mechanism, i.e., the Elevated Heat Pump (EHP) effect that strongly modulate climate change in Asian monsoon regions. He was the senior author of a popular research reference book, “Intraseasonal Variability in the Atmosphere-Ocean Climate System”. As of November 2020, he has coauthored 297 refereed papers, with total citation = 33,932, h-index=101.
Ulrike Lohmann is a climate researcher and professor for atmospheric physics at the ETH Zurich. She is known for her research on aerosol particles in clouds.
Kerry Harrison Cook is an American climate scientist who is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on the analysis of climate variability and change in the tropics using observational analysis and high-resolution numerical modeling. Specialties include the climate of Africa and the dynamics of intense tropical rainfall. She was elected Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 2009 and was awarded the Joanne Simpson Tropical Meteorology Research Award in 2021. She is the Chair of the American Meteorological Society's Climate Variability and Change Committee.
