Modelling the Intercontinental Transport of Ozone and Aerosols

Oliver Wild

Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, UK

Currently at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, CAS, Beijing

Many atmospheric pollutants have sufficiently long lifetimes in the atmosphere that they may be transported over intercontinental scales and have a significant impact on air quality in regions far downwind. The Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (HTAP) under the UN-ECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) has been charged with assessing our current knowledge of the extent of intercontinental transport for a range of atmospheric pollutants and the contribution that this may have to air quality and climate. As part of this activity, HTAP have coordinated a series of major international model intercomparison exercises focussed on quantifying the extent and effects of intercontinental transport and identifying weaknesses in our current understanding and in our ability to represent key processes in current models. This talk will summarise the results of these studies for ozone and aerosols, drawing on both my own work and on the findings and recommendations of the HTAP final report which is currently being finalised for publication later this year.

Short Biography:

Oliver Wild completed a PhD in atmospheric chemistry in Cambridge and then moved to the University of California at Irvine where he spent three years developing global models of tropospheric chemistry. In 1999 he moved to the Frontier Research Centre for Global Change in Yokohama, Japan, where he spent six years exploring atmospheric chemistry and transport and their roles in influencing air quality and climate. He returned to the UK in 2005 to work on the NERC QUEST project on Earth System Science, and currently holds a Readership in Atmospheric Science in the Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University. He has contributed to the last three IPCC assessment reports and is a lead author of the UNECE report on the Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (HTAP). His principal research interests are in the chemical and meteorological processes controlling tropospheric composition, the indirect climate impacts of short-lived gases such as NOx, intercontinental transport of ozone, and Earth System interactions and feedbacks involving tropospheric chemistry.