International network for coordinating work on the physicochemical properties of molecules and mixtures important for atmospheric particulate matter

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Atmospheric aerosol particles are major contributors to both climate forcing uncertainties and adverse effects on human health. Without an improved knowledge of basic data it is not possible to predict effects or simplify and / or parameterise aerosol properties with any degree of certainty. The proposed work targets improvements in those parameters that currently compromise state of the art models of aerosol behaviour. The quantitative improvement in these predictive models will then inform models used to conduct process simulations from single particle to regional scales.

Direct beneficiaries of the immediate work will be largely academic; though results obtained from this project will indirectly benefit policy driven and industrial non-academic end users. The atmospheric community will benefit from provision of a comprehensive set of fundamental property measurements and improved predictive models. Dissemination of knowledge through online software and printed reference material via collaboration with partners will vastly increase our ability to benefit researchers in other fields indirectly, as discussed shortly. The primary non-academic end-users of the proposed programme output in the UK would be the Met Office via existing links with the UKCA Climate- Chemistry-Community-Aerosol model, a joint NCAS-Met Office programme funded by NCAS, GMR and DEFRA. The impacts of aerosol on climate are still credited with the largest uncertainty in climate forcing and a large part of the radiatively active boundary layer sub-micron aerosol burden is organic. Policy decisions with respect to quantification and mitigation of the climate impacts of aerosol require policy-related model simulations with at least a rudimentary but physically-based representation of organic aerosol. Such model descriptions are currently unavailable. The study of those properties which dictate gas/particle partitioning of organic compounds will be able to inform such a climate-focused goal. Other international non-academic agencies conducting IPCC simulations would be best placed to use the same reduced complexity SOA formalisms supplied to the Met Office.