451st Brookhaven Lecture Featuring Yin-Nan Lee

A Tale of Two Hemispheres: Field Studies of Aerosols and Marine Stratocumulus Clouds

Yin-Nan Lee enlarge

Yin-Nan Lee

The greenhouse gases warmed the Earth, the aerosol particles cooled the Earth. While car and power plant exhaust fumes contain greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, the exhaust also contains aerosols that are essential in the formation of clouds, which cool the Earth. Best or worst, scientists are studying the balance between them.

Throughout the past four years, Yin-Nan Lee, a chemist in the Atmospheric Sciences Division (ASD) in the Environmental Sciences Department has collaborated with fellow-ASD scientists and scientists from other institutions to study the effects of aerosol particles on expansive, low-hanging stratocumulus clouds over the coastal waters of California and Chile. Understanding the properties of these clouds will shed new light on just how much the aerosols' cooling effects have masked the warming effects of greenhouse gases.

On Wednesday, May 13, join Lee for the 451st Brookhaven Lecture, titled "A Tale of Two Hemispheres: Field Studies of Aerosols and Marine Stratocumulus Clouds." All are invited to attend this free talk, which is open to the public and will be held in Berkner Hall at 4 p.m. Refreshments will be offered before and after the lecture. Visitors to the Lab ages 16 and older must carry a photo ID while on site.

During the lecture, Lee will discuss his experiences and findings from studying clouds over the oceans of both the northern and southern hemispheres. He will also explain how clouds' natural cooling mechanisms, such as reflecting the sun's light, may have disguised the true impact of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere.

Lee earned a bachelor of science degree in chemistry from Taiwan's Tunghai University in 1969. He then earned a masters' degree in chemistry in 1972 and a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry in 1976 at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He began as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University in 1976 and came to Brookhaven Lab in 1979.

To join Lee for dinner at an off-site restaurant following the lecture on Wednesday evening, contact Nancy Warren, nwarren@bnl.gov, Ext. 7548.

2009-1217  |  INT/EXT  |  Newsroom