SPRING 2026
Wednesdays at 3:00 pm, Seminar Room SLAB 103 / Virtual SLAB 103
Jan 14: Dr. Lauren Zamora
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD / University of Maryland College Park
Guest of Paquita Zuidema, Department of Atmospheric Sciences
To Arctic Clouds From Saharan Dust: An Alumnus Career Retrospective
Aerosol–cloud interactions are one of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate projections for the rapidly warming Arctic, particularly through their influence on the radiative properties of mixed‑phase clouds containing both liquid water and ice. In this talk, I will present a retrospective of my research on aerosol impacts on the environment, tracing a trajectory from PhD work at Rosenstiel on Saharan dust and atmospheric nutrient deposition to the ocean to my current focus on Arctic aerosol–cloud interactions. I will talk about how my training in marine and atmospheric chemistry with Dennis Hansell and Joe Prospero continues to inform my research approach. The presentation will focus primarily on recent developments in understanding Arctic aerosol-cloud interactions, including new satellite observational methods, community scientific priorities identified at a recent QuIESCENT international workshop, and new observations from NASA's 2024 ARCSIX (Arctic Radiation-Cloud-Aerosol-Surface Interaction Experiment) field campaign. I will also discuss emerging satellite remote sensing approaches and recent work on polar mixed‑phase cloud thinning as a potential climate intervention strategy. I will conclude by briefly reflecting on career lessons learned that may be helpful for current graduate students, including managing research transitions, building diverse mentoring networks, and approaching complex scientific problems strategically.
Lauren Zamora is an Associate Research Scientist at the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park. Since 2017, she has also been a cooperative agreement scientist partnering through the University of Maryland with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. She obtained her PhD from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School in 2010 after studying atmospheric aerosol nutrient deposition to the ocean and its biogeochemical impacts. Her current work combines satellite observations, fieldwork, and modeling to investigate how aerosols affect cloud formation in polar regions. Dr. Zamora is on the leadership team for the NASA Arctic Radiation-Cloud-Aerosol-Surface Interaction EXperiment (ARCSIX) aircraft campaign and co-leads the QuIESCENT international scientific group, which coordinates global research efforts to quantify Arctic aerosol-cloud interactions.
Jan 21: SPECIAL ATM & OCE FACULTY PRESENTATION SERIES
Dr. Roland Romeiser
Department of Ocean Sciences, Rosenstiel School
SAR Remote Sensing of the Ocean
A General Overview and Update on Recent Projects
The concept of synthetic aperture radar for high-resolution imaging of the Earth's surface was developed in the 1950s and tested on a first satellite in December 1964. Today, six decades later, we have about 100 operational SAR satellites available to acquire sub-meter-resolution images at almost any point on Earth within hours and to obtain repeated lower-resolution images of large land, coastal, and polar regions every few days. These capabilities, combined with advanced data processing and interpretation techniques and the fact that microwave radars can operate at day and night and see through clouds, have made the SAR satellites attractive and indispensable for a wide range of applications.
This seminar in the COMPASS Special ATM & OCE Faculty Presentation Series will begin with an overview of the history of SAR and of the presenter's own contributions to the field of ocean remote sensing in the last 40 years. The second part will be a sequel to the presentation from October 3, 2018. It was demonstrated how we can reprocess spotlight-mode SAR images into short video-like image sequences and use the theoretical dispersion relation of ocean waves as a filter to separate linear SAR signatures of moving waves from other contributions. The filtered wave signatures can then be inverted into waveheight spectra by applying a simple linear modulation transfer function. Now the latest version of our algorithm can account for changes of the dispersion relation in shallow water and in the presence of surface currents and estimate water depths and current vectors as byproducts of the filtering process. This technique has been used in the analysis of marine radar (ship radar) image sequences for many years, but the SAR-derived time series are too short for a full Fourier analysis in the time domain and required some new solutions, which will be discussed. Last but not least, examples of our team's contributions to the recent large collaborative project "NOPP Hurricane Coastal Impacts" will be shown.
Jan 28: Dr. Alexander Soloviev
Dept of Marine and Environmental Sciences, Nova Southeastern University, Dania Beach, FL
Feb 04: SPECIAL ATM & OCE FACULTY PRESENTATION SERIES
Dr. Joseph Prospero
Professor Emeritus, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Rosenstiel School
A Random Walk From the Atom to Dust Over the Global Ocean
"If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else" – Yogi Berra
I joined the faculty in 1963, when the School was known simply as the "Marine Lab". Then, research was largely focused on marine biology and some marine geology. There was little research in the physical sciences. Since that time, the School has grown greatly, and research has expanded to cover a wide range of disciplines. Much of this early growth occurred by recruiting faculty who had no education or experience in ocean science. I was one of those persons. My Ph.D. (Princeton) was in nuclear chemistry and nuclear spectroscopy. In my third year, I concluded that the field was approaching a dead-end and would not last until retirement. I decided that, upon graduation, I would move into a different field of research although I had no idea what that might be. By pure chance, I learned of an opportunity to lead a project at the Marine Lab. I took it. Unfortunately, the project was a failure. In this presentation, I describe how my program evolved and grew along with that of the School as a whole. I do not intend to provide a survey of my science but rather to describe the context in which my program grew. Early in my career, I focused on the goal of developing a global picture of the aerosol distributions over the global ocean. I attained this goal by creating a global ocean network of aerosol sampling stations on islands in all the oceans. These data were spatially integrated using a variety of remote sensing products, both ground-based and from satellites. Participation in major field campaigns enabled synoptic observations and large scale integration. I will also provide brief vignettes of some of the persons who played a large role in the development of my career and in the evolution of the School. These include: Fritz Koczy, Cesare Emiliani, Elizabeth Rona, Frank Millero, Erik Kraus, and Claes Rooth.
Feb 11: AVAILABLE
Feb 18: Dr. Andrew Dessler
Texas Center for Extreme Weather, Texas A&M University, College Station
Guest of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences
Feb 25: AVAILABLE
Mar 04: AVAILABLE
Mar 11: NO SEMINAR (Spring Recess)
Mar 18: AVAILABLE
Mar 25: AVAILABLE
Apr 01: AVAILABLE
Apr 08: AVAILABLE
Apr 15: AVAILABLE
Apr 22: Dr. Milan Curcic
Department of Ocean Sciences, Rosenstiel School
Wave Action Balance in Strongly Varying Currents
