Atmospheric Physics

The Institute for Terrestrial and Planetary Atmospheres at Stony Brook uses a variety of satellite data and data from general circulation models to better understand the evolution of, and present alterations in, the Earth's climate. Prof. Robert de Zafra's group in the Physics Department is part of this Institute. This group has made the first identification of chlorine species responsible for the depletion of ozone in the Antarctic ozone hole using remote-sensing apparatus built in-house. Physics offers and ideal training to conduct research in these fascinating and important research areas. Research groups in the Institute work on problems of earth's radiation balance and long-term climate change, on mesospheric/stratospheric dynamics and chemistry, and on tropospheric trace gas pollution.

Stony Brook postdocs Ulf Klein and Susanne Crewell, and graduate student Dongjie Cheng at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, where research has been carried out for much of the past decade on the seasonal "ozone hole".
Prof. de Zafra at South Pole station (having arrived on the ski-equipped C-130 shown behind him). Two year-long series of stratospheric trace-gas measurements have been made at the Pole by means of mm-wave remote-sensing spectroscopy.

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