WEEKLY COLLOQUIUM
Thursday, April 24, 2025
3:05 - 4:20 PM
Zoom: https://calstatela.zoom.us/j/89128805666
In-Person Viewing: Biological Sciences, Room 334
From Ozone to Wildfires: Using Spectroscopy to Probe Our Atmosphere
Prof. Kimberly Strong
University of Toronto
Spectroscopic techniques provide a powerful tool for probing our atmosphere. UV-visible grating spectrometers and Fourier transform infrared spectrometers can be used to measure the abundances of many trace gases. These measurements enable us to improve our understanding of the chemical and physical processes that determine atmospheric composition and drive atmospheric change. This talk will provide an overview of some of the current challenges in atmospheric science, and describe some highlights of composition measurements made with UV-visible and infrared spectrometers at the University of Toronto Atmospheric Observatory, located in downtown Toronto, and at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory, located at Eureka, Nunavut. Several applications will be discussed, including studies of long-range transport of smoke plumes from wildfires and Arctic stratospheric ozone depletion. The talk will also briefly describe a new atmospheric observatory being established in the Canadian Arctic.
Spring 2025 Department of Physics and Astronomy Colloquium Schedule
(This schedule will be updated throughout the semester.)
- Thursday, February 6: Dr. Jose Rodriguez, CSULA, "Cooperative Order from Flat Electron Bands in Twisted Bi-Layer Graphene"
- Thursday, February 13:
- Thursday, February 20: Dr. Emilie Royer, CSULA, "The Night Sky’s Hidden Light: Airglow as a Window into Solar System Atmospheric Dynamics"
- Thursday, February 27: Dr. Keeyoon Sung, JPL/Caltech, "High-Precision Molecular Spectroscopy in Support of NASA Space Missions and Instrument Design"
- Thursday, March 6: Dr. David Van Buren, JPL/Caltech, "Phenomenology of the Future in Spacetime"
- Thursday, March 13: Dr. Catherine Spurin, Stanford University, "Research needs in porous media for geological storage"
- Thursday, March 20: No Colloquium
- Thursday, March 27: Muhammad Osama Ishtiak, University of Toronto, "Perfluoroalkane Cross-sections: Insights from Density Functional Theory"
- Thursday, April 3: Spring Break, No Colloquium
- Thursday, April 10: Dr. Negin Forouzesh, CSULA, "Physics-guided Machine Learning for Drug Discovery"
- Thursday, April 17:
- Thursday, April 24: Dr. Kimberly Strong, University of Toronto, "From Ozone to Wildfires: Using Spectroscopy to Probe Our Atmosphere"
- Thursday, May 1: No Colloquium
Thursday, May 8:
End of Spring 2025 Semester