Welcome

"Welcome to the Shepson Atmospheric Chemistry Research Group! We pursue scientific studies related to chemical exchanges and photochemical processes that occur at Earth interfaces, from the hemispheric to the nano scales. On the large scale, we study: 

1. Air-surface interactions in the Arctic, specifically, photochemical reactions that occur near or within the sea ice surface. 

2. Biosphere-atmosphere interactions in North American Forest environments. Here we focus on two types of processes: the photochemical oxidation of biogenic volatile organic compounds, and the resulting impacts, and transformations of atmospheric nitrogen and the impacts of the deposition of that nitrogen, e.g. with respect to the carbon cycle.

3.  Exchanges of greenhouse gases, primarily CO2 and CH4 with the surface, using our aircraft, the Airborne Laboratory for Atmospheric Research (ALAR).

Our Arctic work is most often pursued at Barrow, Alaska, but we have previously worked a great deal at Alert, Nunavut, and hope to return! Our work in the Arctic takes place within the context of the international project OASIS (Ocean-Atmosphere-Sea Ice-Snowpack), which we helped to create. Among the things that we are excited about is the O-buoy project; check it out!

You can get a "taste" of the Arctic at our site.  We are recently participated in a project known as “BROMEX”.

Much of our forest-atmosphere interactions work has been done at the University of Michigan Biological Station, as part of the PROPHET program, which we helped create.  Our work is supported by analytical methods development efforts, mostly in the areas of chromatography and mass spectrometry. But we do a variety of things, e.g. cavity ringdown measurements of CO2 and CH4, from the ALAR aircraft . We could not do many of the things we do without the assistance of theJonathan Amy Facility for Chemical Instrumentation, for which we are grateful! All of our work is done in the context of climate change and a changing atmosphere. 

In our lab, we work hard, do exciting work, have fun, and go far! Join us!"