Within the Solomon group at MIT, we focus on interactions between chemistry and climate, at both poles of the Earth as well as the tropics. A selection of current projects includes:

• Probing heterogeneous chemistry in the tropical stratosphere.

• Evaluating and understanding the healing of the Antarctic ozone hole.

• Quantifying emissions of chlorofluorocarbons, hydrochlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons, including those from “banks” in applications such as refrigeration, air conditioning, and insulation foam.

• Developing methods to include gravity wave impacts on temperature-dependent atmospheric chemical reactions.

• Determining whether the width of the Earth’s tropics are changing, and why.

• Ocean-atmosphere interactions.

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• Influences of volcanoes on the chemistry, climate, and radiative properties of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Image: Jake Belcher

• Evaluating the spatial variability of the onset, duration, and severity of anthropogenic climate change.

• Improving the understanding of Antarctic ozone changes using satellite and ground-based data.

• Exploring the behavior of the ice-age stratosphere.

• Documenting the emergences of significant changes in climate in the stratosphere and troposphere, and comparing these for models and measurements.

Featured Publications and News

Study predicts the oceans will start emitting ozone-depleting CFCs

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MIT News, by Jennifer Chu