Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry Group

Monique Albert

Research Interests

Marine aerosols, particularly sea salt aerosol - Remote sensing - Climate

Research project

Sea spray aerosol strongly influences the climate, through both the direct and the indirect effect. Global climate models require a sea spray source function flux, i.e. the flux of sea spray aerosol across the air-sea interface, currently parameterized in terms of wind speed or friction velocity with an uncertainty of a factor of 3-5.
The aim of the project is to provide estimates of the surface flux of primary marine aerosol, i.e. the global emission of sea spray per unit surface area per unit of time, using data from various satellites, such as wind speed, wave conditions, whitecap cover, sea surface temperature and chlorophyll. The satellites provide direct global observations, as opposed to point measurements, model parameterizations, or climatology. The inherent spatial variability of the observed parameters is expected to better explain reported differences in sea spray aerosol concentrations. Results will be validated versus point measurements from various field campaigns.

Curriculum vitae

July 2008 - present	PhD at TNO / IMAU, Utrecht
2001-2008	Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology
1998-2001	Applied Physics, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, Eindhoven

Internships

2007-2008	Fluid dynamics laboratory, Eindhoven University of Technology Subject: Characterizing the effects of rotation on quasi-two-dimensional turbulence.
Spring 2001	Philips CDS (Creative Display Solutions), Eindhoven Subject: Designing a new optical path to illuminate an LCD in a projector.
Autumn 2000	KEMA, Arnhem Subject: Determining the quality of metallic coatings on blades of gas turbines using eddy-current techniques.