International Research Fellow Awards: Influence of Atmospheric Dust on Global Climate Variations During Last Glacial Cycle

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9703688 Mahowald The International Research Fellow Awards Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad. This award will support a twelve-month postdoctoral research visit by Dr. Natalie M. Mahowald to work with Dr. Knut Henning Rodhe at Stockholm University in Sweden. Dr. Mahowald will construct and apply a coupled model for the sources, entrainment, atmospheric transport and deposition of atmospheric dust, driven by a combination of results from atmospheric general circulation and ecosystem models for the last glacial maximum. The concentrations of mineral dust in ice-cores exhibit large variations between glacial and interglacial periods with higher concentration occurring during glacial periods. Atmospheric dust may play an active role in the control of global climate change on the glacial-interglacial time scale. Such control can be brought about by the scattering of solar radiation back to space, by altering nutrient balances in the ocean, and by lowering the albedo of snow and ice surfaces. ***