Cheat Sheet Old Site
Lee
Feinman

Atmospheric chemistry console. Bromide CIMS, field instruments, radical chemistry, literature trails, climate pointers, essays, code, and CV files.

channel 01 / research transmissions

Work
Signal

Research and project posts become selectable transmissions with instrument figures preserved inside a floating article reader.

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Br-CIMS

2025

I still work on a Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometer (CIMS)1, but the one here in the Volkamer Lab is has some features that open up new avenues of research.

We use bromide ($\ce{Br-}$) as our reagent ion (instead of iodide which I used previously and is fairly popular). Bromide has essentially the same selectivity as iodide, but for most species, bromide is more sensitive. Importantly for the research interests of my group, bromide allows us to measure iodine-containing species. If we used iodide, the flooding of iodine in the system makes it impossible to say that any $\ce{I2}$ observed is a real measurement or a byproduct of the reagent ion chemistry. I have no direct interest in iodine investigations, however, my research goals still benefit from the use of bromide.

channel 02 / zotero feed

Literature
Directory

A Zotero-inspired file finder focused on Atmospheric Chemistry and its descendants. Search, open folders, and read bibliography streams without leaving the console.

30 collections loaded source: live Zotero API
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Seminar

An unexpected and persistent increase in global emissions of ozone-depleting CFC-11

Montzka, Stephen A., Dutton, Geoff S., Yu, Pengfei, Ray, Eric, Portmann, Robert W., Daniel, John S., Kuijpers, Lambert, Hall, Brad D., Mondeel, Debra, Siso, Carolina, Nance, J. David, Rigby, Matt, Manning, Alistair J., Hu, Lei, Moore, Fred, Miller, Ben R., Elkins, James W. / Nature / 2018

Deployment and evaluation of an NH<sub>4</sub><sup>+</sup>∕&thinsp;H<sub>3</sub>O<sup>+</sup> reagent ion switching chemical ionization mass spectrometer for the detection of reduced and oxygenated gas-phase organic compounds

Zang, Cort L., Willis, Megan D. / Atmospheric Measurement Techniques / 2025

Automotive braking is a source of highly charged aerosol particles

Unknown

Photoinitiated Degradation Kinetics of the Organic UV Filter Oxybenzone in Solutions and Aerosols: Impacts of Salt, Photosensitizers, and the Medium

Cooper, Adam, Shenkiryk, Alexis, Chin, Henry, Morris, Maya, Mehndiratta, Lincoln, Roundtree, Kanuri, Tafuri, Tessa, Slade, Jonathan H. / ACS ES&T Air / 2024

Understanding the Driving Forces of Summer PM1 Composition in Seoul, Korea, with Explainable Machine Learning

Hu, Qihua, Moon, Jihye, Kim, Hwajin / ACS ES&T Air / 2024

Singlet oxygen is produced from brown carbon-containing cooking organic aerosols (BrCOA) under indoor lighting

Borduas-Dedekind, Nadine, Gemmell, Keighan J., Jayakody, Madushika Madri, Lee, Rickey J. M., Sardena, Claudia, Zala, Sebastian / Environmental Science: Atmospheres / 2024

The Trump Administration and the Environment — Heed the Science

Samet, Jonathan M., Burke, Thomas A., Goldstein, Bernard D. / New England Journal of Medicine / 2017

Fine particulate pollution concentration in Addis Ababa exceeds the WHO guideline value: Results of 3 years of continuous monitoring and health impact assessment

Kumie, Abera, Worku, Alemayehu, Tazu, Zelalem, Tefera, Worku, Asfaw, Araya, Boja, Getu, Mekashu, Molla, Siraw, Dawit, Teferra, Solomon, Zacharias, Kristin, Patz, Jonathan, Samet, Jonathan, Berhane, Kiros / Environmental Epidemiology / 2021

A reactive condensation particle counter for measuring atmospherically relevant concentrations of sulfuric acid

Casalnuovo, Dominic A., Cheng, Darren, Flores-Romero, Michel, Montesinos-Castellanos, Alejandro, Jen, Coty N. / Aerosol Science and Technology / 2023


channel 03 / climate pointers

Climate
Explainers

Chemistry-forward climate notes for non-chemists, staged as public education transmissions.

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$CO_2$

$CO_2$'s importance

  1. Radiative balance helps us understand earth without carbon dioxide.
  2. Porridge is better when its not too hot and not too cold. 'Bear' with me here.
  3. Resonance helps us understand carbon dioxide's impact.
  4. Black body radiation can show why more $CO_2$ leads to higher temps.

Radiative Balance

This story begins with the coldness of space.

Why is coldness relevant?

Because it's really hard to live in the cold. Imagine Paris, Vienna, and Edinburgh had similar climates to Antarctica. We would be missing out on some pretty good philosophy, right? Culture as we know it would be pretty bland, if existent at all.

Our universe kind-of prefers coldness, so galaxies & their planets need to be pretty nifty in their attempt to stay warm. We generally say cold things have less energy than their hot counterparts. Energy is expressed in movement and light (among other things), and high movement or brightness among matter is correlated to high temperature.

Why is space cold?

If we put a big rock in space and shine light (energy) on it, the rock will get rid of the energy! The inbound energy flux (energy of light on the exposed surface) is always equal to the outbound energy flux. This phenomenon is called radiative balance1 and it's a really troubling physical principle for anyone interested in living on big rocks in space. Right? Space takes all objects' outbound energy. When something is taking energy from something else, it is cold.

You're saying non-stars emit energy?

Boring, random rocks/objects are not stars, correct. But they do give off energy in the form of light! They abide by the principle of radiative balance.

It's important to remember not all light is visible to us. Earth gives off mainly infrared light (IR is invisible to us).2

Wait, why does the planet maintain a temperature at all?

You know how walking down an empty stairwell compels you, by the overpowering force of immaturity, to pull from the depths of your throat a big "hoooot"? And how if you pull out the "hoooot" note just right, a proper shake buzzes about the air? We call this resonance.3

Earth's outward infrared light happens to have a particularly interesting property: it tickles some molecules' fancies. To be technical, this light causes certain molecules to resonate! This incredible video shows just this.

When light resonates with the vibration of molecules, the molecules move faster... meaning their temperature increases! (Temperature is the average energy of movement.)

Carbon dioxide, water, methane are a few of the molecules that resonate with infrared radiation and absorb it. Without these compounds, Earth would give away energy without warming up. (Earth would be a cold, cold place lacking any good philosophy!)

Why doesn't Earth constantly heat up if the Sun constantly shines?

This is important. The resonating compounds are very good at what they do. More of them $\rightarrow$ more absorbed infrared light $\rightarrow$ higher temperatures.

These compounds are what maintain a temperature of roughly $15\ ^oC/60\ ^oF$ close to Earth's surface. What they don't absorb gets emitted! (Because of radiative balance.)

Goldilocks needed a bowl of porridge with a temperature that was just right. Life as we know it (and good philosophy) also needs Earth stay at a temperature that is just right.

Black body radiation shows $CO_2$ is the most important resonating molecule

Carbon dioxide is:

  1. Particularly good at resonating with infrared radiation,
  2. in relatively high concentrations in the atmosphere, and
  3. resonant with the type of infrared radiation Earth emits most.

Each dashed line in the image below corresponds to an object emitting infrared light. These objects are called black bodies and the profile of the light they emit is characteristic of their temperature.4 The area under their curve is unique. Black bodies are ideal objects. This is why their curves look so perfect.

The solid black line represents Earth trying to be a black body. Clearly, it's not doing a great job. The plot shows measurements of infrared light that Earth is emitting from the Sahara Desert. We can see that there are certain "wavelengths" (top axis) of light that we don't see much of. In other words, there are some big dips. (Like at $15 \ \mu m$, $10.5 \ \mu m$, and $8-7.5 \ \mu m$.)

Those dips represent infrared light emitted by Earth that did not reach the measurement device. What happened to it? The resonating molecules (colloquially, greenhouse gasses) absorbed the light before got there!

Why does that matter?

Because of radiative balance! All of that infrared radiation is being absorbed by (and thus heating) the resonating molecules. Because of this, our atmosphere heats up. More resonance $\rightarrow$ higher baseline of Earth's curve in this plot $\rightarrow$ warmer atmosphere.

This visualization hopefully makes clear:

  1. If a lot of carbon dioxide is released into the sky, the baseline of this curve will rise;
  2. Thus, Earth's temperature will, too — it has to.

1 Radiative balance of Earth. "The only source of heat on Earth is solar radiation. As any physical body with a temperature above absolute zero, Earth loses heat in the form of infrared radiation proportional to the fourth power of its absolute temperature. The Earth as a planet is in almost perfect thermal steady state and therefore the top of the atmosphere must be in a complete globally-averaged radiative balance." - Heat Transport, Oceanic and Atmospheric
2 IR radiation. "That portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that extends from the long wavelength, or red, end of the visible-light range to the microwave range." - Britannica
3 Resonance in chemicals. "When the frequency of an external oscillation or vibration matches an object (or cavity’s) natural frequency, and as a result either causes it to vibrate or increases its amplitude of oscillation." - SCIENCING
4 Black body curves. "At thermodynamic equilibrium, the rate at which an object absorbs radiation is the same as the rate at which it emits it. Therefore, a good absorber of radiation (any object that absorbs radiation) is also a good emitter. A perfect absorber absorbs all electromagnetic radiation incident on it; such an object is called a black body." - Physics LibreTexts

channel 04 / off-frequency

Personal
Archive

Philosophy, books, programming, workflow, and the parts of the intellectual life that sit outside the lab.

Lee Feinman is a self-proclaimed expert on nothing. This is why he studies chemistry (to become an expert at chemistry) and writes essays, poems, and short stories about the journeys taken by he who is in search of expertise. He is a native of Media, PA. Aside from pursuing a professional career in atmospheric chemistry, Lee enjoys a literary and philosophical interest in reading & writing in his free time.

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Philosophy

An Exegesis Concerning On the Genealogy of Morals, Essay II

By Lee Feinman

An Extended Discussion of "On the Three Metamorphoses": Nuance, Rejection, and Juxtaposition

By Lee Feinman

Social-Material Convergence through the Special Composition Question

By Lee Feinman

The Relationship Between Art and Aesthetics

By Lee Feinman

Response to Unruly Edges by Anna Tsing

By Lee Feinman


channel 05 / file drawer

CV
File

A cleaner launch point for the resume: current position, direct PDF action, and an archival preview if you want it.

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now CU Boulder PhD student, Chemistry, Volkamer Lab.
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cims acquisition console
SCAN HELD: instrument idle