Faculty Research Fellow Jeffrey Geddes Gives Distinguished Lecture at University of Toronto Centre for Global Change Science

Jeffrey Geddes, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth & Environment and a Pardee Center Faculty Research Fellow, recently presented gave a Distinguished Lecture at the University of Toronto Centre for Global Change Science (CGCS) seminar series.

Prof. Geddes’s talk, titled “Contemporary and Future Changes to Biosphere-Atmosphere-Chemistry Interactions,” explored the role of the terrestrial biosphere as an important global source and sink of short-lived trace gases that contribute to atmospheric reactivity, and discussed challenges in representing this process in state-of-the-art models of global chemical transport, particularly in relation to global air quality. These concepts are integrated into his work on long-term land use and land cover change impacts on atmospheric chemistry, which contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the externalities associated with different scenarios for land management, and may also shed light on potentially unexplored air quality penalties from climate change.

CGCS is a cross-disciplinary center established in 2005 to serve as a focal point for research and education in global change science at the University of Toronto. In addition to organizing the lecture series, CGCS provides competitive funding for graduate researchers and internship opportunities for undergraduate students.

Prof. Geddes’s talk included preliminary findings from his research supported by the Pardee Center Faculty Research Fellows program, where he leads a two-year project titled “Global Air Quality in the 22nd Century: The Role of Climate- and Land Use-Driven Perturbations to Atmospheric Nitrogen Cycling.” The project aims to quantify climate- and land use-driven changes to the atmospheric nitrogen cycle that may cause unexpected, and previously unexamined, impacts on global air quality.