General Lab Information

Allison McComiskey

Department Chair, Environmental and Climate Sciences Department

Allison McComiskey

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Environmental and Climate Sciences Department
Bldg. 815
P.O. Box 5000
Upton, NY 11973-5000

(631) 344-7511
amccomiskey@bnl.gov

Preferred Gender Pronouns (PGPs): she/her/hers

Dr. McComiskey is the Chair of the Environmental & Climate Sciences Department at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory. She oversees integrative research programs in atmospheric and ecological sciences and data management programs for open data access that support DOE’s Biological and Environmental Research (BER), Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and other state and regional organizations in the Northeastern U.S. In this role, she serves as a leader in Brookhaven’s efforts to leverage fundamental climate science to build solutions that will support a Net Zero nation.

Dr. McComiskey joined Brookhaven National Lab in 2018 after 15 years with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Earth System Research Laboratory where she managed programs for long-term monitoring of atmospheric radiation, aerosol, and cloud properties. Her research interest was the radiative forcing of atmospheric constituents, specifically aerosols and clouds that change in response to human actions, and the long-term impact of these changes on the climate. Her focus is now on developing programs that evolve the conformation of Earth system observations for integration with computational methods that will promote understanding of climate processes and prediction of future climate states for informing climate solutions. Throughout her career, she has held leadership roles in DOE BER programs, serving on several science and infrastructure advisory committees.

Research | Education | Publications

Research Activities

  • NASA Aerosols, Clouds, Convection, and Precipitation Study (ACCP)-Atmospheric Observing System (AOS) Sub-Orbital Working Group, 2019-present
  • NASA ACCP Science Community Committee, 2018-2021
  • National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) Reflecting Sunlight: Recommendations for Solar Geoengineering Research and Research Governance (2021) Workshop and Report
  • Gordon Research Conference for Radiation and Climate, Vice-Chair 2019, Chair 2023
  • Commissioner, International Radiation Commission, 2017-present
  • Radiation Committee of the American Meteorological Society, 2013-2015, 2017-2020
  • Atmosphere Collaboration Team Co-Chair, Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee, 2014-2017

Education

Dr. McComiskey received a Ph.D from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2003 and a M.S. from Northern Arizona University in 1998 in Geography. She received her B.S. in Anthropology from Southern Methodist University in 1992. With her broad scientific background she enjoys working on problems at the intersection of humans and the environment.

Selected Publications

  • Asher E, Thornberry T, Fahey DW, et al (2022) A Novel Network-Based Approach to Determining Measurement Representation Error for Model Evaluation of Aerosol Microphysical Properties. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 127:. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021jd035485
  • Braun RA, McComiskey A, Tselioudis G, Tropf D, Sorooshian A (2021) Cloud, Aerosol, and Radiative Properties Over the Western North Atlantic Ocean. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. doi: 10.1029/2020jd034113
  • Creamean JM, de Boer G, Telg H, Mei F, Dexheimer D, Shupe MD, Solomon A, McComiskey A (2021) Assessing the vertical structure of Arctic aerosols using balloon-borne measurements. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 21:1737–1757. doi: 10.5194/acp-21-1737-2021
  • Creamean JM, Maahn M, de Boer G, McComiskey A, Sedlacek AJ, Feng Y (2018) The influence of local oil exploration and regional wildfires on summer 2015 aerosol over the North Slope of Alaska. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 18:555–570. doi: 10.5194/acp-18-555-2018
  • Sherman JP, McComiskey A (2018) Measurement-based climatology of aerosol direct radiative effect, its sensitivities, and uncertainties from a background southeast US site. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 18:4131–4152. doi: 10.5194/acp-18-4131-2018
  • Calbó J, Long CN, González J-A, Augustine J, McComiskey A (2017) The thin border between cloud and aerosol: Sensitivity of several ground based observation techniques. Atmospheric Research 196:248–260. doi: 10.1016/j.atmosres.2017.06.010
  • Kassianov E, Pekour M, Flynn C, Berg LK, Beranek J, Zelenyuk A, Zhao C, Leung LR, Ma PL, Riihimaki L, Fast JD, Barnard J, Hallar AG, McCubbin IB, Eloranta EW, McComiskey A, Rasch PJ (2017) Large Contribution of Coarse Mode to Aerosol Microphysical and Optical Properties: Evidence from Ground-Based Observations of a Transpacific Dust Outbreak at a High-Elevation North American Site. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 74:1431–1443. doi: 10.1175/jas-d-16-0256.1
  • Feingold G, Balsells J, Glassmeier F, Yamaguchi T, Kazil J, McComiskey A (2017) Analysis of albedo versus cloud fraction relationships in liquid water clouds using heuristic models and large eddy simulation. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 122:7086–7102. doi: 10.1002/2017jd026467
  • Sena ET, McComiskey A, Feingold G (2016) A long-term study of aerosol–cloud interactions and their radiative effectat the Southern Great Plains using ground-based measurements. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 16:11301–11318. doi: 10.5194/acp-16-11301-2016
  • Feingold G, McComiskey A, Yamaguchi T, Johnson JS, Carslaw KS, Schmidt KS (2016) New approaches to quantifying aerosol influence on the cloud radiative effect. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113:5812–5819. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1514035112
  • McComiskey A, Ferrare RA (2016) Aerosol Physical and Optical Properties and Processes in the ARM Program. Meteorological Monographs 57:21.1–21.17. doi: 10.1175/amsmonographs-d-15-0028.1
  • Feingold G, McComiskey A (2016) ARM's Aerosol–Cloud–Precipitation Research (Aerosol Indirect Effects). Meteorological Monographs 57:22.1–22.15. doi: 10.1175/amsmonographs-d-15-0022.1
  • Yamaguchi T, Feingold G, Kazil J, McComiskey A (2015) Stratocumulus to cumulus transition in the presence of elevated smoke layers. Geophysical Research Letters. doi: 10.1002/2015gl066544
  • Ravela S, Sandu A (2015) Dynamic Data-Driven Environmental Systems Science. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-25138-7
  • Attwood AR, Washenfelder RA, Brock CA, Hu W, Baumann K, Campuzano-Jost P, Day DA, Edgerton ES, Murphy DM, Palm BB, McComiskey A, Wagner NL, de Sá SS, Ortega A, Martin ST, Jimenez JL, Brown SS (2014) Trends in sulfate and organic aerosol mass in the Southeast U.S.: Impact on aerosol optical depth and radiative forcing. Geophysical Research Letters 41:7701–7709. doi: 10.1002/2014gl061669
  • Lee SS, Feingold G, McComiskey A, Yamaguchi T, Koren I, Vanderlei Martins J, Yu H (2014) Effect of gradients in biomass burning aerosol on shallow cumulus convective circulations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 119:9948–9964. doi: 10.1002/2014jd021819
Allison McComiskey

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Environmental and Climate Sciences Department
Bldg. 815
P.O. Box 5000
Upton, NY 11973-5000

(631) 344-7511
amccomiskey@bnl.gov

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