Biography:

Dr. Geng is a professor of Environmental Sciences and Geochemistry at USTC. He specializes in stable isotope geochemistry and atmospheric chemistry. By combining stable isotope tracers, atmospheric box and 3-D chemical transport models, and laboratory experiments, he explores the sources and transformations of reactive gases and aerosols in the atmosphere, discerning their responses and feedback to environments and climate changes. In particular, he focuses on how the earth’s atmospheric oxidation capacity forms and evolves, and how it shapes the habitability of Earth. His research extends for the urban regions to the Cryosphere (e.g., Tibet and the Polar regions), and to Mars which has similar atmospheric chemistry as Earth. Dr. Geng has published many papers in top-tier journals including Nature, PNAS, ACP, GRL, GMD, and received awards including the Maire-Curie individual fellowship. 

Research Interest:

1) Air pollution and atmospheric chemistry;
2) Planetary photochemistry and consequences;
3) Atmospheric chemistry and climate interactions;
4) Atmospheric oxidation capacity;
5)The cryosphere and ice cores.

What You Can Expect in the Project:

The summer project is to explore changes in reactive halogen chemistry from the last glacial maximum to the Holocene using a state-of-the-art chemistry global interactive chemistry and climate model, and to evaluate how the changes in reactive halogen have affected atmospheric sulfate production. The latter is important for the earth’s radiative balance and thus influences climate. The results will be further compared with ice core records of sulfate isotopes obtained from Greenland and Antarctica, to produce robust conclusions on how atmospheric sulfate burden has changed over the past climates and what are the feedbacks to climate.

Desired skill and background:

Students who major in chemistry, physics, and atmospheric sciences are welcome; Experience in programming and data analysis using Python, MATLAB and IDL is a plus.