General Lab Information

Ernie Lewis

Atmospheric Scientist, Aerosol Processes & Observing Systems, Environmental and Climate Sciences Department

Ernie Lewis

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Environmental and Climate Sciences Department
Bldg. 815E, Room 1-40
P.O. Box 5000
Upton, NY 11973-5000

(631) 344-7406
elewis@bnl.gov

Ernie Lewis,  originally trained as a physicist, started at Brookhaven National Laboratory as a chemical oceanographer and participated in ten ocean-going cruises on which he measured properties of the CO2 system in seawater. Together with D. W. R. Wallace he wrote the program CO2SYS, which has become the standard program in the oceanographic community for calculation of oceanic carbon system parameters. After moving to the Environmental & Climate Sciences Department, his work has focused on understanding microphysical, hygroscopic, and optical properties of aerosols, including sources of natural aerosol production, aerosol dynamics, direct aerosol forcing of climate, and the structure of black carbon-containing aerosol particles. Together with Stephen E. Schwartz, he authored the book Sea Salt Aerosol Production: Mechanisms, Methods, Measurements, and Models—A Critical Review, published by the American Geophysical Union in 2004. Lewis was the Principal Investigator of MAGIC, the Marine ARM GPCI Investigation of Clouds, which occurred between September, 2012 and October, 2013. MAGIC, whose goal was to measure properties of clouds and precipitation, aerosols, radiation, and meteorological conditions in the Eastern North Pacific, involved deployment of the Second ARM Mobile Facility (AMF2) on the Horizon Lines cargo ship Spirit as it traversed a route between Los Angeles, CA and Honolulu, HI. From 2013-2023, he was the chair of ACCESS, the Atmospheric Chemistry Colloquium for Emerging Senior Scientists, which was held in conjunction with the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) in Atmospheric Chemistry every two years. In April, 2016 he gave the 514th Brookhaven Lecture on "What Will Earth Be Like in 50 Years?", which can be found at https://www.bnl.gov/video/index.php?v=517.

Expertise | Research | Education | Appointments | Publications

Expertise

  • Marine measurements of cloud, aerosol, and radiation properties
  • Biomass burning aerosol particles and the time evolution of their hygroscopic and optical properties
  • Effect of particle size on hygroscopic behavior and on deliquescence and efflorescence
  • The effects of relative humidity on aerosol chemical, physical, and optical properties
  • Phase transitions of aerosol particles; deliquescence and efflorescence
  • Light scattering and radiative transport in the atmosphere
  • Air-sea exchange of gases and particles
  • Physical and chemical properties of electrolyte solutions and their parameterization
  • Sea salt and sea spray aerosols and their properties, concentrations, and production
  • Sources of natural aerosol production
  • Aerosol dynamics and processes in the atmosphere
  • Cloud formation and cloud droplet activation
  • Climate and climate change, and the effect of aerosols on climate change
  • The carbon dioxide system in the oceans
  • Measurement of chemical and physical properties of seawater

Research Activities

  • 1998-present: Environmental & Climate Sciences Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory
  • 1993-1998: Department of Oceanography, Brookhaven National Laboratory

Education

  • California Institute of Technology, B. S. (Honors), Physics
  • von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, Brussels, Belgium, Diploma
  • The University of Texas at Austin, A. B. D., Theoretical Physics

Professional Appointments

  • American Geophysical Union
  • American Meteorological Society

Selected Publications

  • Jiang L, Dunne J, Carter BR, et al (2023) Global Surface Ocean Acidification Indicators From 1750 to 2100. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 15, e2022MS003563. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022ms003563
  • Humphreys MP, Lewis ER, Sharp JD, Pierrot D (2022) PyCO2SYS v1.8: marine carbonate system calculations in Python. Geoscientific Model Development 15:15–43. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-15-2022
  • Sedlacek AJ, Lewis ER, Onasch TB, et al (2022) Using the Black Carbon Particle Mixing State to Characterize the Lifecycle of Biomass Burning Aerosols. Environmental Science & Technology 56:14315–14325. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c03851
  • Zhang L, Segal-Rozenhaimer M, Che H, et al (2022) Light absorption by brown carbon over the South-East Atlantic Ocean. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 22:9199–9213. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-9199-2022
  • Vokes ET, Lewis ER, Johnson AL, Cotterell MI (2022) Densities of internally mixed organic-inorganic particles from mobility diameter measurements of aerodynamically classified aerosols. Aerosol Science and Technology 56:688–710. https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2022.2062293
  • Jiang L-Q, Pierrot D, Wanninkhof R, et al (2022) Best Practice Data Standards for Discrete Chemical Oceanographic Observations. Frontiers in Marine Science 8:705836, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.705638
  • Sharp JD, Pierrot D, Humphreys MP, et al (2021) CO2SYSv3 for MATLAB. Version v3.2.0. Zenodo. URL https://zenodo.org/record/3950562
  • Lewis ER (2021) Optimal iteration and its application to some problems in aerosol science and particle dynamics. Aerosol Science and Technology 55:1304–1314. https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2021.1961120
  • Huang T-H, Cai W-J, Vlahos P, et al (2021) The Mid-Atlantic Bight Dissolved Inorganic Carbon System Observed in the March 1996 DOE Ocean Margins Program (OMP)—A Baseline Study. Frontiers in Marine Science 8:629412. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.629412
  • Humphreys MP, Schiller AJ, Sandborn D, et al (2021) PyCO2SYS: marine carbonate system calculations in Python. Version v1.8.0. Zenodo. URL https://zenodo.org/record/3744275
  • Kleinman LI, Sedlacek III AJ, Adachi K, et al (2020) Rapid evolution of aerosol particles and their optical properties downwind of wildfires in the western US. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 20:13319–13341. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-13319-2020
  • Zheng G, Sedlacek AJ, Aiken AC, et al (2020) Long-range transported North American wildfire aerosols observed in marine boundary layer of eastern North Atlantic. Environment International 139:105680. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2020.105680
  • Shou C, Riemer N, Onasch TB, et al (2019) Mixing state evolution of agglomerating particles in an aerosol chamber: Comparison of measurements and particle-resolved simulations. Aerosol Science and Technology 53:1229–1243. https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2019.1661959
  • Lewis ER (2019) The Dependence of Radius on Relative Humidity and Solute Mass at High Relative Humidities Up to and Including 100%. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 124:2105–2126. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018jd030008
  • Sedlacek AJ, Onasch TB, Nichman L, et al (2018) Formation of refractory black carbon by SP2-induced charring of organic aerosol. Aerosol Science and Technology 52:1345–1350. https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2018.1531107
  • Painemal D, Chiu J -Y. C, Minnis P, et al (2017) Aerosol and cloud microphysics covariability in the northeast Pacific boundary layer estimated with ship-based and satellite remote sensing observations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 122:2403–2418. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016jd025771
  • Yang W, Marshak A, McBride PJ, et al (2016) Observation of the spectrally invariant properties of clouds in cloudy-to-clear transition zones during the MAGIC field campaign. Atmospheric Research 182:294–301. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2016.08.004
  • Feldberg SW, Lewis ER (2016) Concentration and Density Changes at an Electrode Surface and the Principle of Unchanging Total Concentration. Journal of The Electrochemical Society 163:H3167–H3172. https://doi.org/10.1149/2.0231604jes
  • DeMott PJ, Hill TCJ, McCluskey CS, et al (2015) Sea spray aerosol as a unique source of ice nucleating particles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113:5797–5803. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1514034112
  • Sedlacek AJ, Lewis ER, Onasch TB, et al (2015) Investigation of Refractory Black Carbon-Containing Particle Morphologies Using the Single-Particle Soot Photometer (SP2). Aerosol Science and Technology 49:872–885. https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2015.1074978
  • Lewis E, Teixeira J (2015) Dispelling Clouds of Uncertainty. Eos 96:16-19. https://doi.org/10.1029/2015eo031303
  • Zhou X, Kollias P, Lewis ER (2015) Clouds, Precipitation, and Marine Boundary Layer Structure during the MAGIC Field Campaign. Journal of Climate 28:2420–2442. https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-14-00320.1
  • Meskhidze N, Petters MD, Tsigaridis K, et al (2013) Production mechanisms, number concentration, size distribution, chemical composition, and optical properties of sea spray aerosols. Atmospheric Science Letters 14:207–213. https://doi.org/10.1002/asl2.441
  • Sedlacek AJ, Lewis ER, Kleinman L, et al (2012) Determination of and evidence for non-core-shell structure of particles containing black carbon using the Single-Particle Soot Photometer (SP2). Geophysical Research Letters 39:n/a-n/a. https://doi.org/10.1029/2012gl050905
  • Kleinman LI, Daum PH, Lee Y-N, et al (2012) Aerosol concentration and size distribution measured below, in, and above cloud from the DOE G-1 during VOCALS-REx. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 12:207–223. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-207-2012
  • de Leeuw G, Andreas EL, Anguelova MD, et al (2011) Production flux of sea spray aerosol. Reviews of Geophysics 49:. https://doi.org/10.1029/2010rg000349
  • Bruzewicz DA, Checco A, Ocko BM, et al (2011) Reversible uptake of water on NaCl nanoparticles at relative humidity below deliquescence point observed by noncontact environmental atomic force microscopy. The Journal of Chemical Physics 134:044702. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3524195
  • Wang Z, King SM, Freney E, et al (2010) The Dynamic Shape Factor of Sodium Chloride Nanoparticles as Regulated by Drying Rate. Aerosol Science and Technology 44:939–953. https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2010.503204
  • Lewis R, Schwartz E (2004) Sea Salt Aerosol Production: Mechanisms, Methods, Measurements and Models—A Critical Review. Geophysical Monograph Series. https://doi.org/10.1029/gm152
Ernie Lewis

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Environmental and Climate Sciences Department
Bldg. 815E, Room 1-40
P.O. Box 5000
Upton, NY 11973-5000

(631) 344-7406
elewis@bnl.gov

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