Are you looking to broaden your perspectives in Earth and environmental data science? Are you excited to collaborate with others and hear about new developments in this area?

Topics must be about using *big data* to advance knowledge of the dynamics and interactions of the Earth system, towards actionable insights and tools

Starting Spring 2022, Earth Lab will be hosting a regular weekly 50-min seminar series on topics related to Environmental Data Science (EDS) that uses big data to advance knowledge of the dynamics and interactions of the Earth systems, towards actionable insights and tools.

These weekly sessions are intended to inspire collaboraitons and creative problem solving using data and analytics for a broad range of environmental science topics. Each week will be led by someone and can take on many forms: data jams, ractice conference talks (15 min) w/ Q&A, paper Discussions, brainstorming, 30 min lecture, other. 

Purpose: To reignite collaborations by inspiring creative problem solving by sharing the many interesting projects and work that Earth Lab and affiliates have been doing to advance the use of data for environmental challenges. 
 
Who: Earth Lab affiliates, CU affiliates, and other interested parties are invited to attend.
When: Tuesdays 11:00-11:50 AM (MST) beginning on 1/18/22
Where: Remote (Zoom and VizStudio).
What: View the schedule of events here.  
Why: We wish to reinvigorate the Earth Lab community and facilitate collaborative interactions that have been challenging during extended work-from-home time.
 
To receive weekly announcements and reminders about future talks, SIGN UP HERE to be added to our listserv. 
 
Also attached is a recurring calendar invite. This is a series invite, if you ever plan to attend, please “tentatively accept” and decline individual events once this is saved to your calendar. 

This week's topic: What’s Data Got To Do With It?: Re-Thinking The Role of “Big Data” For Arctic Fire Mapping, Monitoring, and Policymaking

Speaker: Jessica L. McCarty - Miami University

Visit our website for more details.

ESOC virtual coffee hour occurs weekly from 9-10am on Wednesdays. We will be meeting remotely on Zoom. Please email Claire Waugh (waughc@colorado.edu) for information.

ESOC researchers, post-docs and graduate students gather for conversation and to discuss research. Occasional guest speakers are invited to give short presentations on topics of interest.

Please join CGA members and Leslie Blood for our second Hidden Curriculum seminar in the series to discuss time management and setting goals!

The Hidden Curriculum seminars were developed by Amanda Donaldson, Galen Gorski, Colleen Murphy, Jenny Pensky, Adam Price, Christina Richardson, Araceli Serrano, and Margaret Zimmer* because much of the graduate school experience is focused on tangible and formal skill development surrounding research and teaching. These seminars focus on the informal “hidden curriculum”/"soft skills" in graduate school that can complement formal student learning to help individuals lead successful research careers.

The second seminar of this series will focus on time management, led by Leslie Blood from the CU Graduate School. Leslie currently leads the Endurance PhD/MA program and many of the professional development workshops at the university. She will discuss how to prioritize your work and manage your time in a way that will help you make deadlines. 

Please join us on Friday March 4th @10 am - 11:30 am MST on zoom to hear some tips and ask your own questions. In order to receive the zoom link, please RSVP using this form by Thursday March 3rd by 5 pm MST. 

* Source: 
Zimmer, M., A. Donaldson, G. Gorski, C. Murphy, J. Pensky, A. Price, C. Richardson, A. Serrano (2021). Hidden curriculum in the geosciences graduate course, HydroShare, http://www.hydroshare.org/resource/60b4def2ee034f4b8a0b488704770905

Import resources mentioned during the event:

Accountability/productivity seminar through CU Graduate School: Endurance PhD/MA seminar

Personal values test (may be useful to help understand your motivators): https://personalvalu.es/personal-values-test

The fourth tendencies personality test: https://quiz.gretchenrubin.com/four-tendencies-quiz/

Stolen Focus: https://stolenfocusbook.com/

Different types of planners:

Clever fox: https://cleverfoxplanner.com/collections/pro/products/pro-weekly

Best self: The best self planner

Productivity planner: The productivity planner

Polymer Sorption of VOCs for Indoor Air Quality and Atmospheric Sampling

Melissa Morris, ANYL 3rd year,
Jimenez group

"Polymers comprise a substantial fraction of the surfaces in indoor environments, where we spend about 90% of our time. It is well-known that polymers absorb gas-phase volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which directly affect indoor and outdoor air quality, but few studies have investigated the interactions between polymers relevant to indoor materials and VOCs. To better understand the role of carpets on indoor air quality, we have extended recent studies from our groups on polymer-VOC interactions to include polymers relevant to carpets (nylon, polyester, polypropylene, polyethylene), as well as carpet itself. We use a Vocus proton transfer mass spectrometer to measure sorption of a series of 2-ketones by polymer or rolled-carpet tubes. Then, we use two sorption models adapted from Pagonis et. al. (2017) and Algrim et. al. (2020) to quantify sorptive capacities (and for highly-sorptive polymers, VOC diffusion coefficients) for these materials. The polymers were found to increase in sorptive capacity as: nylon, polyester, polypropylene and polyethylene. Polypropylene and polyethylene (often used in carpet backing) are more sorptive for the same geometry. However, nylon and polyester (the materials of carpet fibers), do comparable sorption when scaled up to account for the enormous surface area of carpet fibers. The sorptive capacities of carpet polymers suggest that carpet indoors is comparable in sorptive capacity to paint (Algrim et al. 2020) and wood (Ziola et al. 2022). Sorption experiments also showed that nylon carpet irreversibly sorbs C4-C9 acids. While testing carpet-relevant polymers for VOC sorption, we tested a few additional polymers relevant to atmospheric sampling, including TSI conductive silicone tubing. We found that conductive silicone tubing only transmits very high-volatility compounds (C* > 1e7 ug m-3, such as terpenes and more volatile species). We have demonstrated the use of a system with tubing of multiple polymer materials as a separator of gas-phase compounds into volatility classes. This technique could be useful e.g. for measuring chemical characteristics (i.e. OH reactivity or SOA potential) of complex mixtures of gas-phase compounds (such as ambient air) according to volatility class."

Are you looking to broaden your perspectives in Earth and environmental data science? Are you excited to collaborate with others and hear about new developments in this area?

Topics must be about using *big data* to advance knowledge of the dynamics and interactions of the Earth system, towards actionable insights and tools

Starting Spring 2022, Earth Lab will be hosting a regular weekly 50-min seminar series on topics related to Environmental Data Science (EDS) that uses big data to advance knowledge of the dynamics and interactions of the Earth systems, towards actionable insights and tools.

These weekly sessions are intended to inspire collaboraitons and creative problem solving using data and analytics for a broad range of environmental science topics. Each week will be led by someone and can take on many forms: data jams, ractice conference talks (15 min) w/ Q&A, paper Discussions, brainstorming, 30 min lecture, other. 

Purpose: To reignite collaborations by inspiring creative problem solving by sharing the many interesting projects and work that Earth Lab and affiliates have been doing to advance the use of data for environmental challenges. 
 
Who: Earth Lab affiliates, CU affiliates, and other interested parties are invited to attend.
When: Tuesdays 11:00-11:50 AM (MST) beginning on 1/18/22
Where: Remote (Zoom and VizStudio).
What: View the schedule of events here.  
Why: We wish to reinvigorate the Earth Lab community and facilitate collaborative interactions that have been challenging during extended work-from-home time.
 
To receive weekly announcements and reminders about future talks, SIGN UP HERE to be added to our listserv. 
 
Also attached is a recurring calendar invite. This is a series invite, if you ever plan to attend, please “tentatively accept” and decline individual events once this is saved to your calendar. 

This week's topic: Seeing the forest (and rock) through the trees: How high resolution mapping present new challenges and opportunities in landscape evolution modeling

Speaker: Matt Rossi - CIRES Earth Lab

Visit our website for more details.

ESOC virtual coffee hour occurs weekly from 9-10am on Wednesdays. We will be meeting remotely on Zoom. Please email Claire Waugh (waughc@colorado.edu) for information.

ESOC researchers, post-docs and graduate students gather for conversation and to discuss research. Occasional guest speakers are invited to give short presentations on topics of interest.

Times Up! Time Management Workshop with Tommy Acierno

This workshop, open to all CIRES employees, is brought to you by the CIRES Braiding your River Career Development Series, a collaboration between the CIRES Mentoring Program, CIRES E&O and CIRES HR.

Register here.

Spectroscopic studies of oxygen and iodine using cavity enhanced extinction spectroscopy

Henning Finkenzeller, ANYL PhD thesis,
Volkamer group

"Atmospheric oxygen extinguishes approximately 2 W m-2 solar radiation in oxygen-oxygen collision-induced absorption (O2-O2 CIA). This heats the atmosphere, affects radiative transfer, and needs to be considered in atmospheric spectroscopy. The lack of O2-O2 CIA spectra below 335 nm wavelength is limiting remote sensing applications. Here we report measured spectra of the O2-O2 CIA cross-section between 297-500 nm using Cavity Enhanced Extinction Spectroscopy. Several heretofore unmeasured weak absorption bands (at 315, 328, 420, and 495 nm) are characterized for the first time in the gas phase under controlled laboratory conditions, i.e., at atmospheric pressure and variable temperature (293, 263, and 223 K). The spectra are optimized for use in hyperspectral remote sensing applications, provide opportunities to develop theory, and warrant application in radiative transfer calculations to re-assess O2-O2 CIA heating rates in the atmosphere.

Iodine is a reactive trace element in atmospheric chemistry that destroys ozone and efficiently nucleates particles. Iodine emissions have tripled since 1950 and are projected to keep increasing. While iodic acid (HIO3) is widespread and grows particles more efficiently than sulfuric acid, its gas-phase formation mechanism is unresolved. Here, in CLOUD experiments which generate iodine radicals at atmospherically relevant rates, we show that iodooxy hypoiodite, IOIO, is efficiently converted into HIO3 via reactions (R1) IOIO + O3 → IOIO4 and (R2) IOIO4 + H2O → HIO3 + HOI + O2. The laboratory derived mechanism is corroborated by theory and shown to explain field observations of daytime HIO3 in the remote lower free troposphere. The new mechanism provides a missing link between iodine sources and particle formation and - since aerosol iodate is readily reduced in the atmosphere, thereby recycling iodine back to the gas phase - suggests an important catalytic role of iodine in aerosol formation."

Please join CIRES HR on March 15, from 10:00-11:30 am for the second session of the Supervisor Training Series being offered by CIRES HR. In this session, Kelly Leandro, CU HR, Principal Employee Relations Consultant, will be talking about Performance Management.  

Kelly will focus on supervision fundamentals such as building rapport, coaching techniques, effective ways to offer feedback, and difficult conversations. Supervisors will also get acquainted with the documentation used to address performance issues and progressive discipline, as well as learn about the role of both CIRES HR and Campus HR in the process of addressing such concerns.

Join Zoom Meeting https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/99502573671

Meeting ID: 995 0257 3671 One tap mobile +12532158782,,99502573671# US (Tacoma) +13462487799,,99502573671# US (Houston)

Please join CIRES Director Waleed Abdalati for another CIRES Town Hall on Wednesday, March 16 for both CU Boulder and NOAA-based employees.

Zoom Meeting: https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/95144472001

Meeting ID: 951 4447 2001

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Meeting ID: 951 4447 2001