News & Features

Researchers from the Department of Environmental Science are involved in the operation of two strategically placed measurement stations in the Maldives and Bangladesh, which capture air pollutants that affect people’s health and the climate. These pollutants come from diverse sources across the Indian subcontinent, which the research is seeking to pinpoint. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are among the countries with …

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) plays a vital role in assessing the state of the science on this issue, and their latest report, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, the first of three reports in the sixth assessment cycle, is a milestone in our understanding of …

Jana Johansson, who is currently an Associate Professor at Linköping University, was a PhD student and later Researcher at the Department of Environmental Science.  She is also the host of a new podcast, produced in collaboration with Stockholm University, where she is shedding light on the history of environmental pollution and the ongoing efforts to manage it. The new podcast …

Like every year on 8 March, Sweden and many other countries celebrate International Women’s Day that focuses on the achievements and challenges of women around the world. The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day campaign is #EmbraceEquity. To mark this special day and important theme, we talked to Professor Anna Sobek, who not only is our new Head of Department but our first female leader …

Ilona Riipinen,  Professor at the Department of Environmental Science and Co-Director of the Bolin Centre for Climate Research, has been awarded the Göran Gustafsson Prize in Physics 2023 “for her pioneering research on atmospheric aerosol particles and their impact on clouds, climate, and human health.”  Each cubic centimeter of air contains thousands of liquid or solid aerosol particles. The particles are …

Due to a strong international interest in the open online course on assessment and management of chemicals, the training is being launched a second time in April 2023. The training was developed by Assistant Professor Marlene Ågerstrand at the Department of Environmental Science and has so far been completed by participants from almost 60 countries. “It’s fantastic to see the …

Changes in the Arctic sea ice due to global warming have created opportunities to reach previously inaccessible regions earlier than usual. Come early May, six researchers from the Department of Environmental Science will board the Swedish icebreaker Oden in Longyearbyen on Svalbard, Norway, to participate in the international expedition ARTofMELT2023 (Atmospheric Rivers and the Onset of Sea Ice Melt 2023) …

This morning, on Thursday 23 February, a number of European newspapers published the findings of the cross-border monthslong investigation Forever Pollution Project that focuses on the “forever chemicals,” a popular term for the approximately 10,000 substances collectively known as PFAS. The Project charts the 17,000 European locations that are contaminated with PFAS on a map, and reveals an additional 22,000 …

Uncovering the sources of major air pollutants, such as black carbon (BC), is important for understanding their impact on climate. A new study by researchers at the Department of Environmental Science published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  (PNAS) shows that the sources of BC found over the Indian Ocean differ between winter and summer. This finding may have implications for …

Researchers at the Department of Environmental Science welcome the proposal from Sweden, The Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Norway to ban a majority of PFAS-substances from products being used and sold within the European Union. We encourage ECHA, the European Chemical Agency, to take the proposal forward to the European Commission without diluting its scope or ambition. PFAS is a collective …

PhD students Kyra Spaan and Gabriel Freitas from the Department of Environmental Science are among the 9 young researchers selected to participate in the Baltic Sea Festival Science Lab, where the researchers will team up with 9 composers to transform their research results into original musical works. Kyra Spaan’s research focuses on finding known and unknown environmental contaminants in samples …

Professor Anna Sobek is the new Head of Department from 1 January 2023. Since completing her PhD from Stockholm University in 2006, Anna Sobek has spent some time at the Swiss Centre of Excellence for Agricultural Research, Zürich, Switzerland, on a Marie Curie post-doc grant. She returned to Stockholm University in 2010 and has held a permanent position at the Department of …