UROP Project

How does the cooling efficiency of marine organisms change under future warming and climate intervention scenarios?

Meteorology, Climate Change, Phytoplankton, Marine Science

Research Mentor: Lili Boss, She/Her/Hers
Department, College, Affiliation: Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science, Arts and Sciences
Contact Email: lfb23d@fsu.edu
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from mentor):
Research Assistant Supervisor Email:
Faculty Collaborators:
Faculty Collaborators Email:

Looking for Research Assistants: Yes
Number of Research Assistants: 1
Relevant Majors: Meteorology, Environmental Science
Project Location: On FSU Main Campus
Research Assistant Transportation Required:
Remote or In-person: Partially Remote
Approximate Weekly Hours: 5-10 hours, Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Roundtable Times and Zoom Link:
Not participating in the roundtable

Project Description

Greenhouse gas emissions and, consequently, global mean temperatures have continued to rise, leading to increased frequency of heat waves, changes to severe weather patterns, and impacts to biodiversity, necessitating the discussion of preventative measures to keep global temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius past the pre-industrial mean. One suggested technology to limit temperature overshoot is stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), where reflective particles called aerosols would be deliberately released into the stratosphere, reflecting sunlight to counteract the warming from human-derived greenhouse gas emissions. While this technology would provide benefits, such as limiting or reversing the increase in global mean temperature, there could be negative side effects for humans and ecosystems. One potential risk of SAI is changing the biological productivity of marine organisms that require ample amounts of sunlight to undergo photosynthesis. Marine organisms such as phytoplankton have the ability to respond to stressors in their environment such as anomalously warm temperatures by synthesizing chemical compounds that can aid in the formation of brighter marine low clouds, influencing the amount of sunlight interacting with Earth’s surface, and therefore the surface temperature. In this project students will analyze global climate model data to assess how SAI and unabated global warming scenarios change the production of biogenic aerosol particles and their precursor gases, and subsequently marine cloud properties over biologically productive regions. The results will help us determine if SAI would ameliorate or exacerbate stressors in marine environments, leading to a change in the cooling efficiency of marine organisms when compared to unabated warming scenarios.

Research Tasks: Research Assistant will take part in literature reviews, developing code and scripts to analyze output data from global climate models, and participating in scientific communication by presenting either oral or poster presentations.

Skills that research assistant(s) may need: Knowledge in a coding language (Python, Matlab, R, etc.) is recommended but not required.