Sarah J. Doherty
Research Scientist
Executive Officer, International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Project
BA in Physics (1988) from Colby College in Waterville, Maine
MS (1998) and PhD (2001) in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Washington
E-mail: sarahd@atmos.washington.edu
Office: JISAO 141
Phone: 206-543 6674
Fax: 206-685-3397
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~sarahd/
Research Interests
Through her graduate and post-graduate studies Sarah was very actively involved in research on atmospheric aerosols. Aerosols are small particles suspended in the atmosphere which interact with sunlight, thereby reducing the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface of the earth and, when the particles are dark (i.e. gray, brown or black), heating the atmosphere. Sarah's research focused on assessing the optical properties of aerosols from both natural and anthropogenic sources. Her current research studies the impact of a certain type of aerosols, "black carbon" (more commonly known as soot) on snow reflectivity. Model studies indicate that soot from biomass burning and industrial activities may be sufficiently darkening snow in the Arctic to be contributing to melting, and further may be responsible for a significant fraction of northern hemisphere warming.
Sarah and her colleagues are making measurements that will allow us to quantify the amount of soot and dust/soil in snow from samples across the Arctic and to test whether the models have correctly represented changes in snow reflectivity. In addition, Sarah is Executive Officer for the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Project . Recently, Sarah – along with IGAC and SPARC chairs Philip Rasch and A.R. Ravishankara – has been instrumental in starting a new activity: the Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Initiative. This activity will focus on assessing and improving the representation of atmospheric chemistry/climate interactions in models, initially through a set of modeling studies and a model inter-comparison and testing with observational data. The results of this effort will contribute to the next WMO Ozone Assessment and the next IPCC Assessment.
See website: http://www.igac.noaa.gov
Current Research Projects
- Black carbon ("soot") in Arctic snow and it's effect on snow albedo (with Steve Warren & Tom Grenfell, UW Dept of Atmospheric Science, & Tony Clarke, Univ. of Hawai'i)
- Atmospheric Chemistry & Climate interactions (via the IGAC "AC&C" Initiative)
- Oversight of various IGAC projects and activities
Selected Publications
Doherty, S. J., S. Bojinski, A. Henderson-Sellers, K. Noone, D. Goodrich, N. L. Bindoff, J. A. Church, K. A. Hibbard, T. R. Karl, L. Kajfez-Bogataj, A. H. Lynch, D. E. Parker, I. C. Prentice, V. Ramaswamy, R. W. Saunders, A. J. Simmons, M. Stafford Smith, K. Steffen, T. F. Stocker, P. W. Thorne, K. E. Trenberth, M. M. Verstraete, F. W. Zwiers, Lessons learned from IPCC AR4: Future scientific developments needed to understand, predict and respond to climate change, Bull. Amer. Met. Soc., in press, 2008.
Doherty, S.J., P. Quinn, A. Jefferson, C. Carrico, T. L. Anderson, D. Hegg, A comparison and summary of aerosol optical properties as observed in-situ from aircraft, ship and land during ACE-Asia, J. Geophys. Res., 110, D04201, doi:10.1029/2004JD004964, 2005.
Seinfeld, J. H., G. R. Carmichael, R. Arimoto, W. C. Conant, F. J. Brechtel, T. S. Bates, T. A. Cahill, A. D. Clarke, S. J. Doherty, P. J. Flatau, B. J. Huebert, J. Kim, K. M. Markowicz, P. K. Quinn, L. M. Russell, P. B. Russell, A. Shimizu, Y. Shinozuka, C. H. Song, Y. Tang, I. Uno, A. M. Vogelmann, R. J. Weber, J. H. Woo, and X. Y. Zhang, ACE-ASIA: Regional Climatic and Atmospheric Chemical Effects of Asian Dust and Pollution, Bull. Amer. Met. Soc., 85 (3), 367-380, 2004.
Masonis, S. J., K. Franke, A. Ansmann, D. Mueller, D. Althausen, J. A. Ogren, A. Jefferson, and P. J. Sheridan: An intercomparison of aerosol light extinction and 180° backscatter as derived using in-situ instruments and Raman lidar during the INDOEX field campaign, J. Geophys. Res., 107 (D19), 8014, doi: 10.129/2000DJ000035, 2002.
Masonis, S. J., and S. G. Warren: Gain of the AVHRR visible channel as tracked using bidirectional reflectance of Antarctic and Greenland snow, Intl. J. Remote Sens., 22, 1495-1520, 2001.
Doherty, S. J., T. L. Anderson and R. J. Charlson: Measurement of the lidar ratio for atmospheric aerosols with a 180-degree backscatter nephelometer, Appl. Optics, 38, 1823-1832, 1999.