Research

Climate & Space is one of the largest research departments of its kind in the country, receiving annually about $16 million in sponsored research support. As a Climate & Space student, you’ll have many opportunities outside the classroom to work with and learn from world leaders in emerging research areas of climate change, space weather and a system view of Earth and space. Students participate in all aspects of the department’s research and with the high faculty-to-student ratio you’ll benefit from personal attention and intensive interaction with faculty and other students.

Members of the department have built and flown more than 35 instruments on NASA spacecraft, including the Voyager mission to the outer planets, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, the Galileo mission to Jupiter, the CASSINI mission to Saturn and Titan, and the TIDI (TIMED Doppler Interferometer) Instrument.

Climate & Space faculty and students also participate in field campaigns, designing and integrating instruments on balloons, aircraft and sounding rockets to study the dynamics and composition of the atmosphere and the near space environment of the Earth. Climate & Space faculty conduct extensive research in the areas of climate change, air quality, and the dynamics and chemistry of the lower atmosphere. Activities include climate modeling, in-situ measurements, design of instruments, kinetics of chemical reactions and remote sensing from space.

Theoretical and modeling efforts in Climate & Space include developing sophisticated numerical models on a range of topics spanning ocean waves and currents; the impact of naturally occurring and man-made aerosols on climate; the formation and transport of air pollutants; the composition of the outer planets; and plasma physics of the Earth’s magnetosphere and heliosphere.

U-M Weather, one of the first weather resource web pages is also maintained by Climate & Space students.