Sciences and Exploration Directorate

Glenn M Wolfe

(Rsch AST, Atmospheric Chemistry & Dyn)

Glenn M Wolfe's Contact Card & Information.
Email: glenn.m.wolfe@nasa.gov
Phone: 301.614.6008
Org Code: 614
Address:
NASA/GSFC
Mail Code 614
Greenbelt, MD 20771
Employer:
NASA

Missions & Projects

Brief Bio


Glenn has worked at NASA GSFC since October 2012. He is a member of the 614 In Situ Observations Laboratory, which supports NASA Earth Science objectives with measurements of trace gases (formaldehyde, ozone, NO2, and other gases) on multiple airborne platforms. He has participated in numerous airborne missions, including PEGASOS, SENEX, SEAC4RS, CONTRAST, WINTER, SONGNEX, KORUS-AQ, CARAFE, OWLETS, ATom, FIREX-AQ, BlueFlux, ACCLIP, GOTHAAM, and AEROMMA. He is a regular participant in the NASA student airborne research program (SARP).

Glenn's research involves novel applications of airborne observations, including 1) quantifying surface-atmosphere exchange to understand the source and sinks of trace gases, 2) synthesis of airborne and satellite observations to constrain global atmospheric chemical processes, and 3) analysis of interconnected chemical systems through numerical modeling. Glenn is the maintainer of the Framework for 0-D Atmospheric Modeling (https://github.com/AirChem/F0AM), a widely-used software package for simulating atmospheric chemistry. A full list of publications can be found here.

Prior to arriving at NASA, Glenn was a NOAA CGC Post-doctoral fellow at University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. He holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of Washington. He is also an Eagle Scout.

Research Interests


Biosphere-atmosphere Interactions

Earth Science: Atmospheric Chemistry

 


Airborne Eddy Covariance

Earth Science: Atmospheric Measurement

 


Chemical Kinetic Modeling

Earth Science: Atmospheric Chemistry

 


Satellite / in situ observation synergy

Earth Science: Atmospheric Chemistry

Positions/Employment


Research Physical Scientist

NASA GSFC - Greenbelt, MD

November 2020 - Present


Research Associate Professor

Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology - Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Lab, NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, MD

July 2019 - October 2020


Research Assistant Professor

Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology - Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Lab, NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, MD

March 2014 - June 2019


Postdoctoral Research Associate

Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology - Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Lab, NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, MD

October 2012 - March 2014

 

Awards


 2017 NASA GSFC 610AT Award for “Outstanding Performance: Field Campaign Support”

2011 Invited participant, Atmospheric Chemistry Colloquium for Emerging Senior Scientists (ACCESS XI); Atmospheric Chemistry Gordon Research Conference

2010-2012 NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow

2009-2010 EPA STAR Fellow

2005-2008 NASA Earth Systems Science Fellow

2004-2005 Ringold Fellow, University of Washington Department of Chemistry

2004 Phi Beta Kappa Academic Honor Society inductee

2003 Martin and Mary Kilpatrick Prize in Chemistry, JHU Chemistry Department

2003 Howard Hughes Summer Research Fellow

2002 Howard Hughes Summer Research Fellow

1998 Eagle Scout

Current Projects


ACCLIP

Atmospheric Chemistry

https://espo.nasa.gov/acclip/content/ACCLIP


BlueFlux

Carbon Cycle

https://earth.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.php/acd/campaigns/nasa-carbon-monitoring-system-blueflux


GOTHAAM

Atmospheric Chemistry

https://gothaam.science/


AEROMMA

Atmospheric Chemistry

https://csl.noaa.gov/projects/aeromma/

Professional Service


Co-Editor, Atmospheric Measurement Techniques

Peer Reviewer for that paper you wrote

Special Experience


Field Campaigns:

2019   FIREX-AQ: Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments Experiment - Air Quality

2018   SARP: Student Airborne Research Program

2018   ATom 4: Atmospheric Tomography Mission (Spring)

2017   ATom 3: Atmospheric Tomography Mission (Fall)

2017   OWLETS: Ozone Water-Land Environmental Transition Study

2017   SARP: Student Airborne Research Program

2017   CARAFE-CMS: Carbon Monitoring System

2017   ATom 2: Atmospheric Tomography Mission (Winter)

2016   CARAFE: Carbon Airborne Flux Experiment

2016   ATom 1: Atmospheric Tomography Mission (Summer)

2016   KORUS-AQ: Korea U.S. Air Quality Study

2015   SONGNEX: Shale Oil and Natural Gas Nexus

2015   WINTER: Wintertime Investigation of Transport, Emission, and Reactivity

2014   CONTRAST: Convective Transport of Active Species in the Tropics

2013   SEAC4RS: Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys

2013   SOAS: Southern Oxidants and Aerosols Study

2013   SENEX: Southeast Nexus

2012   PEGASOS: Pan-European Gas-Aerosols Climate Interaction Study

2009   BEARPEX-II: Biosphere Effects on Aerosols and Photochemistry Experiment II

2009   ACCRONIM: Activation of Continental Chloride by Reactive Oxides of Nitrogen in Wintertime

2007   BEARPEX-I: Biosphere Effects on Aerosols and Photochemistry Experiment I

2006   INTEX-B: Intercontinental Transport Experiment – B

Selected Publications


Refereed

2025. "Validation of formaldehyde products from three satellite retrievals (OMI SAO, OMPS-NPP SAO, and OMI BIRA) in the marine atmosphere with four seasons of Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATom) aircraft observations." Atmospheric Measurement Techniques 18 (1): 1-16 [10.5194/amt-18-1-2025] [Journal Article/Letter]

2024. "Assessment of Landscape‐Scale Fluxes of Carbon Dioxide and Methane in Subtropical Coastal Wetlands of South Florida." Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 129 (11): [10.1029/2024jg008165] [Journal Article/Letter]

2023. "Sources of Formaldehyde in U.S. Oil and Gas Production Regions." ACS Earth and Space Chemistry 7 (12): 2444-2457 [10.1021/acsearthspacechem.3c00203] [Journal Article/Letter]

2023. "An observation-based, reduced-form model for oxidation in the remote marine troposphere." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120 (34): [10.1073/pnas.2209735120] [Journal Article/Letter]

2023. "Multi-scale observations of mangrove blue carbon ecosystem fluxes: The NASA Carbon Monitoring System BlueFlux field campaign." Environmental Research Letters 18 075009 [10.1088/1748-9326/acdae6] [Journal Article/Letter]

2022. "Photochemical evolution of the 2013 California Rim Fire: synergistic impacts of reactive hydrocarbons and enhanced oxidants." Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 22 (6): 4253-4275 [10.5194/acp-22-4253-2022] [Journal Article/Letter]

2021. "Formaldehyde evolution in US wildfire plumes during the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality experiment (FIREX-AQ)." Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 21 (24): 18319-18331 [10.5194/acp-21-18319-2021] [Journal Article/Letter]

2021. "Rapid cloud removal of dimethyl sulfide oxidation products limits SO2 and cloud condensation nuclei production in the marine atmosphere." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118 (42): e2110472118 [10.1073/pnas.2110472118] [Journal Article/Letter]

2021. "Evolution of formaldehyde (HCHO) in a plume originating from a petrochemical industry and its volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emission rate estimation." Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene 9 (1): [10.1525/elementa.2021.00015] [Journal Article/Letter]

2021. "Spatial and temporal variability in the hydroxyl (OH) radical: understanding the role of large-scale climate features and their influence on OH through its dynamical and photochemical drivers." Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 21 (8): 6481-6508 [10.5194/acp-21-6481-2021] [Journal Article/Letter]

2020. "Validation of satellite formaldehyde (HCHO) retrievals using observations from 12 aircraft campaigns." Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 20 (20): 12329-12345 [10.5194/acp-20-12329-2020] [Journal Article/Letter]

2020. "Spatial heterogeneity in CO2, CH4, and energy fluxes: insights from airborne eddy covariance measurements over the Mid-Atlantic region." Environmental Research Letters 15 (3): 035008 [10.1088/1748-9326/ab7391] [Journal Article/Letter]

2020. "A machine learning examination of hydroxyl radical differences among model simulations for CCMI-1." Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 20 (3): 1341-1361 [10.5194/acp-20-1341-2020] [Journal Article/Letter]

2019. "Hydrocarbon Removal in Power Plant Plumes Shows Nitrogen Oxide Dependence of Hydroxyl Radicals." Geophysical Research Letters 46 (13): 7752-7760 [10.1029/2019gl083044] [Journal Article/Letter]

2019. "Mapping hydroxyl variability throughout the global remote troposphere via synthesis of airborne and satellite formaldehyde observations." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116 (23): 11171-11180 [10.1073/pnas.1821661116] [Journal Article/Letter]

2019. "Towards a satellite formaldehyde – in situ hybrid estimate for organic aerosol abundance." Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 19 (5): 2765-2785 [10.5194/acp-19-2765-2019] [Journal Article/Letter]

2018. "The NASA Carbon Airborne Flux Experiment (CARAFE): instrumentation and methodology." Atmospheric Measurement Techniques 11 (3): 1757-1776 [10.5194/amt-11-1757-2018] [Journal Article/Letter]

2017. "A new non-resonant laser-induced fluorescence instrument for the airborne in situ measurement of formaldehyde." Atmospheric Measurement Techniques 10 (12): 4833-4844 [10.5194/amt-10-4833-2017] [Journal Article/Letter]

2017. "Formaldehyde in the Tropical Western Pacific: Chemical sources and sinks, convective transport, and representation in CAM-Chem and the CCMI models." Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres [10.1002/2016jd026121] [Journal Article/Letter]

2017. "Impact of evolving isoprene mechanisms on simulated formaldehyde: An inter-comparison supported by in situ observations from SENEX." Atmospheric Environment 164 325-336 [10.1016/j.atmosenv.2017.05.049] [Journal Article/Letter]

2016. "The Framework for 0-D Atmospheric Modeling (F0AM) v3.1." Geoscientific Model Development 9 (9): 3309-3319 [10.5194/gmd-9-3309-2016] [Journal Article/Letter]

2016. "An observationally constrained evaluation of the oxidative capacity in the tropical western Pacific troposphere." J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 121 (12): 7461–7488 [10.1002/2016jd025067] [Journal Article/Letter]

2016. "Formaldehyde production from isoprene oxidation across NOx regimes." Atmos. Chem. Phys. 16 (4): 2597-2610 [10.5194/acp-16-2597-2016] [Journal Article/Letter]

2016. "A pervasive role for biomass burning in tropical high ozone/low water structures." Nat Comms 7 10267 [10.1038/ncomms10267] [Journal Article/Letter]

2015. "Quantifying sources and sinks of reactive gases in the lower atmosphere using airborne flux observations." Geophysical Research Letters 42 (19): 8231-8240 [10.1002/2015gl065839] [Journal Article/Letter]

2015. "Reassessing the ratio of glyoxal to formaldehyde as an indicator of hydrocarbon precursor speciation." Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 15 7571-7583 [10.5194/acp-15-7571-2015] [Journal Article/Letter]

2015. "Airborne measurements of the atmospheric emissions from a fuel ethanol refinery." J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 120 4385–4397 [10.1002/2015JD023138] [Journal Article/Letter]

2015. "A new airborne laser-induced fluorescence instrument for in situ detection of formaldehyde throughout the troposphere and lower stratosphere." Atmos. Meas. Tech. 8 541-552 [10.5194/amt-8-541-2015] [Journal Article/Letter]

2012. "Photolysis, OH reactivity and ozone reactivity of a proxy for isoprene-derived hydroperoxyenals (HPALDs)." Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 14 (20): 7276 [10.1039/c2cp40388a] [Journal Article/Letter]