Eric Kort (Max Planck Institute and University of Michigan)

Human driven emissions of a variety of trace gases into the atmosphere have profound impacts on climate and air quality.  Current anthropogenic emissions are not only large enough to be globally impactful, but these emissions can rapidly change in response to technologic, economic, and regulatory pressures.  Changing environmental conditions driven by these human emissions can in turn cause changes in ecosystem fluxes and atmospheric chemistry, further perturbing atmospheric composition.  Our observational capability is rapidly evolving, enabling the use of airborne and space-based observations to identify, quantify, and improve understanding of dynamically changing natural and anthropogenic controls of atmospheric composition.  In this talk I will introduce how the new MPIC Atmospheric Chemistry Department is seeking to tackle this challenge and discuss specific examples of recent work on urban emissions of refrigerants and methane, as well as nitrogen oxide emissions from croplands.

Eric Kort is Director of the Atmospheric Chemistry Department at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and Adjunct Professor at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining MPIC, Kort was Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Kort did his postdoctoral studies as a W.M. Keck Institute for Space Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology after having completed his PhD in Applied Physics at Harvard University. Kort’s recognitions include the AGU Ascent Award, NSF CAREER award, and NASA New Investigator Program award in Earth Science.