Dylan B. Millet

Maps showing fire VOC emissions as measured remotely by the airborne Scanning High-resolution Interferometer Sounder (S-HIS)

With Kelley Wells, @jaredbrewer.bsky.social, Julieta Juncosa Calahorrano, Vivienne Payne, Joe Taylor, Dave Tobin

Results reveal clear wildfire VOC enhancements and track the ensuing plume evolution. The study provides a foundation for future aircraft-based remote sensing. It also shows that instrument noise is a critical factor for future IR sounders to enable trace gas measurements

Fires are a global source of atmospheric volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Airborne remote sensing offers a new way to map these emissions and understand impacts. Chengyuan developed the first VOC retrieval for an aircraft-based IR sounder and used it to map fire VOC emissions in the western US!

First Aircraft‐Based VOC Measurements Using Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing: Mapping Fire Plumes With the Scanning High‐Resolution Interferometer Sounder (S‐HIS) Wildfires release a wide range of gases that are poorly quantified but strongly influence air quality and human health We show that aircraft-based infrared remote sensing can be used to map key w...

New group paper from Chengyuan Hu!

First Aircraft-Based VOC Measurements Using Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing

dx.doi.org/10.1029/2025...

Two new faculty openings at U. Minnesota 🧪

Assist. Prof. in Climate Science
hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/372...
Questions: Tim Griffis, tgriffis@umn.edu

Assist. Prof. in Soil Physics / Ecohydrology / Hydropedology
hr.myu.umn.edu/jobs/ext/372...
Questions: David Mulla, mulla003@umn.edu

Due March 13

A group photo in a festive holiday scene with special guests

Group photo! With special guests Mr. & Mrs. C, Chewy, and Brent

Two plots with the global mean annual burned area (left) and fuel consumption (right), for the 2002–2022 period, in grasslands & non-grasslands.

The new Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED5, 2002–2022) shows that at the global scale 1) by far, most area burned are grasslands; 2) area burned is declining; & 3) fuel consumption is increasing: ie, fires are increasing in forests & encroached grasslands.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧪🌍🔥🌳🌐

Job openings: sustainability research profs at the UMN Institute on the Environment:
drive.google.com/file/d/1L5gp...

My main question for this mass-based scholarly index is whether it can include the SI sections
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

👀

PostdocAd-FarmFlux Postdoctoral Associate: aircraft-based measurements of atmospheric ammonia Join our team! The atmospheric chemistry group at the University of Minnesota (UMN) seeks applications for a Postdoctoral A...

Postdoc opening: airborne NH3 measurements

Join our team! The UMN atmospheric chemistry group is recruiting a postdoc to collect and analyze airborne NH3 measurements as part of NASA FarmFlux.

See z.umn.edu/aw67 for details, & contact Julieta (junco004@umn.edu) and I (dbm@umn.edu) with questions!

Emerging drivers of urban aerosol increase global change vulnerability in a US megacity npj Climate and Atmospheric Science - Emerging drivers of urban aerosol increase global change vulnerability in a US megacity

Out this week in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science: VCPs, biogenic VOCs and traditional anthropogenic PM respond to heat and smoke to drive summer PM pollution outside NYC, highlighting vulnerabilities of urban air quality under global change. @chemdelphine.bsky.social @dbm.bsky.social

A photo of a sonic anemometer with the top arm sheared off

For sale, one sonic anemometer, lightly used

Some memes are relatable they aren’t even like funny, just actively insulting.

NASA Earth Science Division provides key data In May, the US administration proposed budget cuts to NASA, including a more than 50% decrease in funding for the agency’s Earth Science Division (ESD) (1), the mission of which is to gather knowledge...

Save data provided by NASA's Earth Science Division, as outlined by a letter in Science magazine www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... @biometlab.bsky.social @paulstoy.bsky.social @dbm.bsky.social @agu.org @ametsoc.org

A letter in Science about the importance of NASA Earth Science from several members of the recently-dissolved NASA Earth Science Advisory Committee.

Out today online and in the 7/24 issue.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Clouds darkening over NOAA research. We are slated for elimination in next years budget. Astonishing loss to the nation and the world if it happens.

And announced today, Stan was selected as one of the 2024 class of AAAS Fellows:
www.aaas.org/programs/fel...

Even though it only just became public, selections were made back in November so Stan did find out at that point.

Sometimes you *should* meet your (science) heroes. Stan was a giant of chemical kinetics and just a gem of a person. We will miss him.

Folks on this platform will readily think of many other examples. This type of research gives us information we need for smart, informed planning. We can have good-faith policy arguments about what to *do*, but choosing to be uninformed by not collecting data … is just failure.

Volatile chemical products emerging as largest petrochemical source of urban organic emissions Chemical products contribute as much organic air pollution as transportation emissions in many cities.

… and revealed the rising importance of non-transportation emissions for urban air quality.
www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Multiyear trends in volatile organic compounds in Los Angeles, California: Five decades of decreasing emissions VOCs and CO have decreased by a large factor in LA since 1960s VOC emission ratios have not changed Rate of decrease in London is more rapid, but started later

… showed how declining transportation emissions have reduced smog (psst, the Clean Air Act works!) …
doi.org/10.1029/2012...

Increasing springtime ozone mixing ratios in the free troposphere over western North America - Nature High concentrations of ozone in the troposphere are toxic and act as a greenhouse gas. Anthropogenic emissions of ozone precursors have caused widespread increases in ozone concentrations since the la...

… showed how intercontinental transport affects US air quality …
www.nature.com/articles/nat...

Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX‐AQ) This work is an overview of the NOAA/NASA Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) field experiment FIREX-AQ investigated biomass burning emissions and chemist...

… demonstrated how changing wildfire emissions are impacting air quality …
doi.org/10.1029/2022...

There has been way too much groundbreaking research from CSL to mention it all here. A couple examples that often come up in my work:

CSL research helped show the role that natural VOCs play in ozone pollution (changes control strategies!) …
www.nature.com/articles/329...

NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory NOAA CSL: Advancing scientific understanding of the chemical and physical processes that affect Earth's atmospheric composition and climate.

CSL is a NOAA lab that has been foundational in atmospheric chemistry & air quality science. They are now losing young scientists that are among the best/brightest of the next generation. This degrades not just CSL but our ability to track pollution & protect health.
csl.noaa.gov

Screenshot showing an email from NASA SMD stating that the external advisory committees for the 5 NASA science divisions are being eliminated

These were *volunteer* science advisory committees that provided NASA with independent perspective and community guidance ... explain to me how eliminating these is a way to "reduce waste and abuse"

The #standupforscience2025 rallies will be held in DC and around the U.S. NEXT FRIDAY.

Please sign up to attend at standupforscience2025.org

To effectively push back the attacks on science happening now, it is so critical to show mass support for science by gathering together in the streets!

🧪