What I do
The air we breathe does not consist of gas molecules only: each cubic centimetre of atmospheric air typically contains thousands of small aerosol particles. These liquid or solid airborne particles originate from both natural sources (e.g. forests, oceans, deserts) as well as human activities (e.g. combustion processes, traffic), and their diameters span from nanometres to hundreds of micrometres.
Atmospheric aerosol particles play an important role in defining the environments we live in. When inhaled, many particles are harmful to human health. Atmospheric particles also decrease visibility and damage buildings and landmarks when deposited on their surfaces. On global scale, aerosols regulate the Earth’s energy balance and therefore the climate. In current climate models aerosols are still poorly represented: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recognizes aerosols as the largest individual source of uncertainty in calculations of the Earth’s radiative forcing.
My research focuses on understanding the sources, sinks and evolution of atmospheric aerosol particles and their interactions with clouds, climate and human health. My current focus is largely on the interactions between aerosol particles and the atmospheric gas phase, in particular the formation and effects of atmospheric organic aerosol and thus the feedback between ecosystems, human activities and climate.
Together with my colleagues, I work mainly with atmospheric computational models representing the processes governing the evolution and impacts of atmospheric aerosol populations. We model the evolution of atmospheric aerosol from the molecular to the global scale, with a tight connection to experimental data from both laboratory and field studies. The underlying philosophy is that to correctly upscale the molecular level processes to global scale, the scientists working on the fundamental theory need to be brought together with the scientists working on the highly simplified aerosol descriptions in regional and global atmospheric models.
Alumni (PhD students and post-docs I have mentored)
Dr. Erica Trump (Carnegie Mellon University, now at OSIsoft)
Dr. Taina Yli-Juuti (University of Helsinki, now at University of Eastern Finland)
Dr. Benjamin Murphy (Stockholm University, now at US Environmental Protection Agency)
Dr. Silja Häme (formerly Häkkinen) (University of Helsinki, now at University of Helsinki)
Dr. Juan Camilo Acosta Navarro (Stockholm University, now at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy)
Dr. Elham Baranizadeh (University of Eastern Finland, now at South Coast Air Quality Management District, US)
Dr. Jan Julin (Stockholm University, now at ThermoCalc AB)
Dr. Lars Ahlm (Stockholm University, now at Vinnova)
Dr. Maryam Dalirian (Stockholm University, now at Astra Zeneca AB)
Dr. Narges Rastak (Stockholm University, now at Helmholtz Zentrum Munich)
Dr. Jenni Kontkanen (Stockholm University, now at CSC Finland)
Dr. Tanja Dallafior (Stockholm University, now at RMS – Risk Management Solutions Inc.)
Dr. Tinja Olenius (Stockholm University, now at Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Insitute SMHI)
Dr. Samuel Lowe (Stockholm University, now at Sainsbury’s)
Major part of my work is funded by the European Research Council starting grant ATMOGAIN (grant No 278277-ATMOGAIN) and consolidator grant INTEGRATE (grant No 867599-INTEGRATE), Horizon 2020 project FORCeS, Marie Curie Innovative Training Network iMIRACLI, Vetenskapsrådet, Formas and the Wallenberg Academy Fellowship program (grant No 2015.0162 AtmoRemove).
Latest scientific papers
Using Novel Molecular-Level Chemical Composition Observations of High Arctic Organic Aerosol for Predictions of Cloud Condensation Nuclei
All publications
