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Centre for Atmospheric Science

Research Associate

I am a Post-doctoral researcher working with Dr Alex Archibald in the Centre for Atmospheric Science
 
My current post at the Univeristy of Cambridge is focused on adding the Common Representitive Intermediates (CRI) chemical mechanism to the United Kingdom Chemistry and Aerosol (UKCA) component of the Met Office Unified Model. Using CRI will be a significant increase in complexity as compared to the existing mechanisms in UKCA, but will offer substantial benefits in more realistic simulation of VOC degredation, tropospheric ozone formation and provide the framework for more explicit secondary aerosol formation. The long-term goal is to use the UKCA with CRI chemistry to run global chemistry-climate simulations which in turn drive regional simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF-Chem), enabling high-resolution simulations over a region of interest with consistency in chemical mechanism and emissions used across scales.
 

Research Interests

 
My interests lie in using and developing coupled chemistry/climate models to investigate the impacts of short-lived pollutants in the troposphere on air quality, human health and climate. I have particular interest in aerosol evolution and properties: how these are driven by emission sources and secondary formation from gas-phase chemistry, how they feedback on regional meteorology and climate through radiative and cloud interactions, and how they further impact air quality and public health.
 
I did my PhD at the University of Manchester with Prof. Gordon McFiggans between 2010-2014. I worked on using and developing the Weather Research and Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF-Chem), and evaluating it against observational data taken from the FAAM BAE-146 research aircraft, as part of two different research projects. The first (RONOCO) investigated the impact of nighttime nitrate chemistry over the UK, where I helped implement and test the CRI chemical mechanism and an N2O5 heterogeneous chemistry parameterisation in WRF-Chem. The second campaign studied aerosol processes resulting from biomass burning emissions in Amazonia, working in collaboration with Brazilian researchers to use and improve a fire emissions product, and evaluate model output against in-situ flight measurements.
 
Following my PhD, I worked as a postdoctoral research fellow in the Atmospheric Chemistry, Observations and Modeling Laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado with Christine Wiedinmyer. Here, I continued to use WRF-Chem to investigate the impact of particulate emissions from residential solid fuel combustion, a leading source of household and ambient pollution in low-middle income countries, on air quality and health in China.

Publications

Climate feedback from vegetation emissions strongly dependent on modelling of atmospheric chemistry.
J Weber, S Archer-Nicholls, NL Abraham, YM Shin, P Griffiths, DP Grosvenor, CE Scott, AT Archibald
(2022)
Supplementary material to "Sources of Surface O<sub>3</sub> in the UK: Tagging O<sub>3</sub> within WRF-Chem"
J Romero-Alvarez, A Lupaşcu, D Lowe, A Badia, S Acher-Nicholls, SR Dorling, CE Reeves, T Butler
(2022)
Sources of Surface O3 in the UK: Tagging O3 within WRF-Chem
J Romero-Alvarez, A Lupaşcu, D Lowe, A Badia, S Acher-Nicholls, SR Dorling, CE Reeves, T Butler
(2022)
2022,
1
Improvements to the representation of BVOC chemistry-climate interactions in UKCA (vn11.5) with the CRI-Strat 2 mechanism: Incorporation and Evaluation
J Weber, S Archer-Nicholls, NL Abraham, YM Shin, TJ Bannan, CJ Percival, A Bacak, P Artaxo, M Jenkin, MAH Khan, DE Shallcross, RH Schwantes, J Williams, AT Archibald
– Geoscientific Model Development
(2021)
2021,
1
Improvements to the representation of BVOC chemistry-climate interactions in UKCA (v11.5) with the CRI-Strat 2 mechanism: Incorporation and evaluation
J Weber, S Archer-Nicholls, NL Abraham, YM Shin, TJ Bannan, CJ Percival, A Bacak, P Artaxo, M Jenkin, MAH Khan, DE Shallcross, RH Schwantes, J Williams, AT Archibald
– Geoscientific Model Development
(2021)
14,
5239
The Common Representative Intermediates Mechanism Version 2 in the United Kingdom Chemistry and Aerosols Model
S Archer-Nicholls, NL Abraham, YM Shin, J Weber, MR Russo, D Lowe, SR Utembe, FM O'Connor, B Kerridge, B Latter, R Siddans, M Jenkin, O Wild, AT Archibald
– Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems
(2021)
13,
ARTN e2020MS002420
Supplementary material to "Improvements to the representation of BVOC chemistry-climate interactions in UKCA (vn11.5) with the CRI-Strat 2 mechanism: Incorporation and Evaluation "
J Weber, S Archer-Nicholls, NL Abraham, YM Shin, TJ Bannan, CJ Percival, A Bacak, P Artaxo, M Jenkin, MAH Khan, DE Shallcross, RH Schwantes, J Williams, AT Archibald
(2021)
Incorporation and evaluation of the CRI v2.2 chemical mechanism in UKESM1: An alternative mechanism with updated isoprene chemistry for investigating the influence of BVOCs on atmospheric composition and climate. 
J Weber, S Archer-Nicholls, NL Abraham, YM Shin, T Bannan, R Schwantes, M Jenkin, A Khan, AT Archibald
(2021)
The Common Representative Intermediates Mechanism version 2 in the United Kingdom Chemistry and Aerosols Model
S Archer-Nicholls, NL Abraham, YM Shin, J Weber, MR Russo, D Lowe, S Utembe, FM O'Connor, B Kerridge, B Latter, R Siddans, M Jenkin, O Wild, AT Archibald
(2020)
Avoiding high ozone pollution in Delhi, India.
Y Chen, G Beig, S Archer-Nicholls, W Drysdale, WJF Acton, D Lowe, B Nelson, J Lee, L Ran, Y Wang, Z Wu, SK Sahu, RS Sokhi, V Singh, R Gadi, C Nicholas Hewitt, E Nemitz, A Archibald, G McFiggans, O Wild
– Faraday discussions
(2020)
226,
502
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Centre Highlights

• January 2024: The CCPG have successfully submitted a proposal for PACESETTERS!

• September 2nd 2023: Dr Annela Anger-Kraavi has co-authored a paper analysing just transition narratives in European coal regions. Read the paper here

• December 13th 2022: The CCPG have co-authored a paper on game-changing innovations towards net-zero, published in Energy Strategy Reviews. Read the open access paper here.

• November 15th 2022: The final conference of PARIS REINFORCE is taking place today in Sorbonne. Read more about the event here

• October 24th 2022: The CCPG have successfully submitted a proposal for the Cambridge-Tsinghua joint research initiative! 

• May 5th 2022: We've submitted to the UNFCCC's Global Stocktake (GST). More information is available on our news page. 

• March 23rd 2022: Multiple CAS academics have published a paper investigating the future role of anthropogenic methane emissions. Read the open access paper here.

• Feb 18th 2022: Dr Parris and Dr Anger-Kraavi have co-authored a paper that develops a tool to support co-designed transformative change. Read the open access paper here.

• Dec 16th 2021: Dr Parris has co-authored a paper that introduces a tool to support plastic pollution policy. Read the open access paper here.

• Nov 22nd 2021: Dr Anger-Kraavi has co-authored a paper with Paris Reinforce. Read the open access version here


Want to know more about our high-profile publications? Check out our Publication Highlights!


 

Research scientist