AEROSOL GROUP

Research Summary

For more current information, please see links to our personal home pages, and current research projects led by Ellie Highwood and Nicolas Bellouin.

The research of the group has 2 main strands:

  • Characterisation of the optical and radiative properties of aerosols.
  • Climate response to changes in tropospheric aerosols.

We try to reconcile simulations of the scattering and absorption of radiation by aerosol particles with measurements of absorption and radiation fluxes (current projects work on dust (FENNEC) and European anthropogenic aerosol (ADIENT) ). We also use radiative transfer models to simulate the interaction of radiation with aerosol particles.

Our climate modelling work allows us to simulate climate response to different distributions of tropospheric aerosols. We have used the Reading Intermediate General Circulation Model (IGCM) to simulate the transient response to volcanic eruptions and to perform some idealised experiments examining the sensitivity of climate to changes in aerosol. Recent experiments are using the Met Office climate model to simulate climate response to aerosols from EU transport, from supervolcanoes, and to examine the impact of changes in aerosol emissions on the East Asian summer monsoon. We have developed a new dust scheme with the Met Office, constrained by aircraft observations of dust. A new project will use a hierarchy of radiative transfer and climate models to examine the impact of possible stratospheric geo-engineering proposals.

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