Atmospheric Science PhD Degree Program

Climate change. Air pollution. Emissions. Wild fires. The Atmospheric Science—PhD program provides opportunities to study cloud formation in our cloud chamber facility or to learn the impacts of air pollutants emitted in North America and Europe at the Pico Mountain Observatory in Portugal.

Measurements at Pico Mountain study the free atmosphere that is not directly affected by the ocean, and to see pollution transport events originating in North America and Europe. The station was developed to study the global impacts of human activities on the atmosphere. It has proven valuable for learning about the effects of large wild fires in North America and Siberia. Michigan Tech physics faculty are an integral part of research at the observatory and collaborate with many universities and research groups.

Our physics faculty concentrate their research efforts in Earth’s atmosphere by studying ice in the atmosphere to faster-than-terminal fall speeds of raindrops, as part of the PI cloud chamber group. The group has built the world’s largest cloud chamber, the PI Chamber, which draws researchers and students alike to study the microphysics of clouds.

Requirements for the Atmospheric Science Program include:

Bachelor's or Master's degree in the physical sciences or engineering
Mathematics through ordinary differential equations

Atmospheric Physics Faculty

The membership of the cloud chamber group at Michigan Tech is plentiful–in fact, there are 12 full-time faculty in the interdisciplinary atmospheric sciences program but the following physics faculty make considerable contributions to atmospheric studies at Michigan Tech.