New Event Series: Monthly Journal Club

This summer, AAAR@UIUC started a new initiative: a monthly journal club. During the journal club, one AAAR@UIUC member will volunteer to pick out a scientific journal article, lead a presentation and facilitate a discussion on said article.

On June 20, 2022 Manho Park led the first journal club on the paper “The regional particulate matter model: 1. Model description and preliminary results” (Binkowski & Shankar, 1995). The Regional Particulate Model is a 3-D Eulerian model that simulates chemistry, transport and dynamics of sulfuric acid aerosol resulting from primary emissions and the gas phase oxidation of sulfur dioxide. This was the first paper developing the idea of a “modal model” in aerosols modeling research, which has become an accepted and popular approach today. During our discussion, we considered the importance of using scientific visualization for supporting analysis, drawing upon perspectives from Edward Tufte’s book series. We also talked about the importance of communicating between laboratory research, field studies and modeling within the aerosol community.

Our next journal club was held on July 19, 2022. Tessa Clarizio led the conversation on “Global modeling of tropospheric chemistry with assimilated meteorology: Model description and evaluation” (Bey et al., 2001). This was the foundational paper on the atmospheric chemistry model: GEOS-Chem. GEOS-Chem is a 3-D atmospheric model driven by meteorology from the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) of the NASA Global Assimilation Office. GEOS-Chem is a grass-roots, open-access model owned by its users. AAAR@UIUC members shared how they use GEOS-Chem in their own research and how the model has evolved since this paper was published. We also discussed the importance of model verification with observations, and the challenges of evaluating model performance in areas which may not have very many observations.

Our August Journal Club will be hosted on Tuesday, August 16th at 12pm CT, on "Reducing COVID-19 airborne transmission risks on public transportation buses: an empirical study on aerosol dispersion and control" (Edwards et al., 2021) in conjunction with the AS&T Lecture Series. Sign up to our listserv by emailing our Membership Director Yicen Liu to keep up to date on future AAAR@UIUC journal club meetings! By hosting this monthly journal club, we expect to learn and grow together as aerosol researchers.

By Tessa Clarizio

References

Bey, I., Jacob, D.J., Yantosca, R.M., Logan, J.A., Field, B.D., Fiore, A.M., Li, Q., Liu, H.Y., Mickley, L.J. and Schultz, M.G. (2001). Global modeling of tropospheric chemistry with assimilated meteorology: Model description and evaluation. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 106(D19), pp.23073-23095

Binkowski, F. S., & Shankar, U. (1995). The regional particulate matter model: 1. Model description and preliminary results. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 100(D12), 26191-26209

Edwards, N.J., Widrick, R., Wilmes, J., Breisch, B., Gerschefske, M., Sullivan, J., Potember, R. and Espinoza-Calvio, A. (2021). Reducing COVID-19 airborne transmission risks on public transportation buses: An empirical study on aerosol dispersion and control. Aerosol Science and Technology, 55(12), pp.1378-1397.