Rebecca Schwantes
Research Chemist
Atmospheric Composition Modeling
NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory
325 Broadway, R/CSL4
Boulder, CO 80305 USA
303-578-0238
Rebecca.Schwantes@noaa.gov
Affiliation
NOAA
I am interested in improving the description of chemistry in NOAA's research and operational models in order to advance our understanding and ability to predict air quality by more accurately simulating ozone and secondary organic aerosol. My research focuses on the development of reduced chemical mechanisms and their evaluation against aircraft and surface observations.
Education
PhD Environmental Science and Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 2017
B.S. Chemistry and B.A. Mathematics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 2009
Research
- Reduced chemical mechanism development
- Tropospheric ozone formation and loss processes
- Secondary organic aerosol formation
- Model evaluation against aircraft and surface monitoring data
Current Topics
- Updating the RACM_ESRL chemical mechanism to improve the representation of oxygenated volatile organic compounds emitted from volatile chemical products and cooking in order to reduce biases in simulated ozone and secondary organic aerosol in WRF-Chem (Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with chemistry)
- Co-PI of the AEROMMA 2023 field campaign
- Developing MELODIES-MONET, which is a model evaluation tool that easily and efficiently compares simulations from a variety of research and operational models against a variety of surface, aircraft, and satellite observations
- Evaluating NOAA's operational or soon to be operational air quality forecasts against observations and providing feedback to developers
- Adding enhanced research capabilities for atmospheric chemistry within NOAA's Unified Forecasting System (UFS)
last modified: July 07, 2022