The chemistry of the Atmosphere

The chemistry of the gases and particles present in the air around is hugely important area of research. We require a detailed understanding of atmospheric chemistry to enable new pathways to reduce air pollution and climate change. To study this topic requires an approach that combines fundamental laboratory studies on the physico-chemical properties of atmospheric constituents with observations of the abundance and variability of these moities and numerical model simulations that integrate our understanding of the sources and fate of these compounds and with which we can test hypothesis on how they will change under different conditions. In the Archibald team we combine these three approaches to enhance our understanding of the air around us. 

PhD Projects for 2026 entry

We are currently considering students to join the team from October 2026. The projects we are interested in working on include those focused on understanding the impacts of chemical mechanisms in the atmosphere, atmospheric chemistry climate interactions and the impacts of future climate change on air quality. We are also very happy to take students ideas and help co-develop these. 

Dr Archibald discusses his research

The Archibald Team

We are a diverse team of researchers interested in improving the understanding of what goes on in the atmosphere. 

2017-2018

2018-2019 with members of the Schmidt team and the Pyle team. 

2019-20 with members of the Schmidt Team and Pyle Team. 

2022

2024

PhD Students

Zainab Hakim -- 

Sophie Turner -- 

Michelle Wan -- 

Matthew Shin -- 

Andrea Chlebikova -- SOAR³

Co-Supervised:

Omer Nivron -- 

Risa Ueno -- Improving predictions of future urban temperature extremes for improved energy demand.

Former students:

Lorrie Jacob -- 

Print Sakulsupich -- 

Jayaprakash Murulitharan -- 

Seb Hickman -- 

Zosia Staniaszek -- Future Methane

Xingpei Ye -- Visiting from Peking University

Wentai Zhang -- Visiting from Hong Kong University 

Jason Sun -- Improved estimates of the air pollution impacts on human health

Le Yuan -- Improving Air Quality for Beijing

James Weber -- Chemistry Climate Feedbacks in the Earth System. 

Ben Cala -- Improving the representation of DMS chemistry in UKCA. 2020-2021. 

Johnny Staunton-Sykes -- Volcanic Halogens

David Wade -- Paleo Composition Climate Interactions.

MPhil Students (past and present):

Owen Graham -- Studying the aviation impacts of conflict

Isabella Dressel -- Modelling the climate impacts of the hydrogen economy 

Selena Zhang -- Earth system impacts of near term climate overshoots. 

Lihang Pan -- A tale of two cities: Ozone trends and impacts in Beijing and New Delhi. 2019-2020. 

PostDocs and Research Assistants

Current:

Laura Stecher -- FETCH4

Print Sakulsupich -- TWISTA/InHALE

Charlie Wartnaby -- REVEAL-NOx

Rob Waters -- NCAS-Climate

Yao Ge -- CARES

Luke Abraham -- NCAS-Climate

Maria Russo -- NCAS-Climate

Nicola Warwick -- NCAS-Climate

Megan Brown -- Is there life on Mars? (LCLU)

Former:

Xu-Cheng He -- Independent Fellowship, Helsinki, Finland. 

Paul Griffiths -- Lecturer at the University of Bristol

James Keeble -- Lecturer at Lancaster University 

Scott Archer-Nicholls 

Zainab Hakim 

Part III Students/Summer students

2025-2026 

Joanna Baylis

Sean Leong 

Amir Rupani 

2024-2025

Max Roberts -- Modelling methane chemistry feedbacks

Sam Webber -- Mars modelling 

Anna Leow -- Modelling the fate and transport of DMS in the North Atlantic 

Amir Rupani -- Modelling the NABLEX campaign 20 years on. What have we learned? 

Rohan Agarwal -- Iron salt aerosol, a safe way to remove methane? 

Vatsal Kabra -- Air pollution in Delhi: Easy wins through NOx or VOC control? 

2023-2024

James Perman -- 

Ben Harvey -- Constraining Uncertainty In Natural Aerosols Climate Impacts

Robbie Matthews -- Assessing the Prediction of the Distribution of Atmospheric DMS and HPMTF above the North Atlantic Ocean

2022-2023

Alex Mason -- Assessing UKESM1 modelled tropospheric ozone using FAAM aircraft campaign data

Arsen Ismagilov -- Investigating the relationship between ozone and atmospheric blocking

Olivia Hooke -- Investigating the impact of a hydrogen economy on atmospheric chemistry and climate

2021-22

Douglas Russel -- Attributing the role of aerosols and ozone precursors on the tropospheric ozone budget. 

Joanne Bell -- Arctic stratospheric ozone trends and causes.

Daniel Winter -- NAO-surface ozone correlations.

2020-21 

Hannah Bryant -- Arctic ozone holes: Frequency, causes and impacts.

Ioana Doran -- ACSIS: Impacts of fires on the North Atlantic. 

Shengxian Ke -- The impacts of COVID-19 on global tropospheric ozone. 

Matt Wright -- Reconciling the budget of ozone in the troposphere. 

2019-20

Imogen Lever -- The potential air quality and climate impacts of a future hydrogen economy 

Seb Hickman -- Simulating the chemistry of OH in the free troposphere: Simple models and machine learning

Tom Elgar -- Biosignatures as a sign of life? Modelling isoprene chemistry on exoplanets. 

Emilia O'Reilly -- The impacts of the Asian Summer Monsoon on atmospheric chemistry and transport.  

2018-19

Rachel Allen -- Trends in the NO3 radical: 1850-2100. 

Molly Harte -- Geoengineering: Solutions and impacts

Alice Cozens -- Geoengineering: Solutions and impacts

Jack Entwistle -- Evaluation of ATom aircraft campaign data in comparison to UKCA model

Domas Kalvaitis -- Can an exopllanet model simulate the chemistry of Earth?

2017-18

Matthew Shin -- Evaluating trends in tropospheric ozone over the UKCA model

Tom Surrall -- Evaluation of emission inventories of VOCs over India

Alec Granville-Willet -- Evaluation of Archean atmosphere HCHO photochemistry

Research Interests

Our research involves the development and application of state-of-the-art chemistry-climate models. With these models we are trying to answer a number of questions relevant to society: (i) What are the impacts of changes in man made emissions on the composition of the atmosphere (ii) how does the changing composition of the atmosphere affect climate (iii) how will a changing climate impact the composition of the atmosphere.

There are three main areas of research within the group:

• Understanding the fundamentals of gas phase chemistry in the atmosphere
• Understanding the impacts of changes in gases and particles on climate
• Understanding the impacts of changes in climate on gases and particles

Current funded projects

REVEAL-NOx: Reducing aviation Emissions' uncertain climate impacts: NOx

Constraining the role of the marine sulfur cycle in the Earth System (CARES)

Direct Studies of Peroxy Radical Autoxidation Reactions

TWISTA (The Wide-ranging Impacts of STratospheric smoke Aerosols)

Investigating HALocarbon impacts on the global Environment (InHALE)

Completed projects

Topic A. Hydrogen Emissions: Constraining The Earth system Response (HECTER)

The North Atlantic Climate System Integrated Study: ACSIS

Oxidant Budgets of the Northern Hemisphere: OXBUDS

Process analysis, observations and modelling - Integrated solutions for cleaner air for Delhi: PROMOTE

Specific projects have included:

• The mechanisms of oxidation of biogenic hydrocarbons

One of the main areas of research in my group is trying to better understand the mechanisms of oxidation of biogenic hydrocarbons - in particular the oxidation of isoprene. Isoprene enters the atmosphere via emissions from plants and trees. Every year a mass roughly equal to that of the entire human population is emitted into the atmosphere! Owing to this, and its high reactivity, it is paramount to include isoprene chemistry in chemistry-climate models. However, the details of the chemistry vary wildly between models and isoprene chemistry has been suggested as a major cause of disagreement between model predictions of secondary pollutants. The figure below highlights some of the chemistry of isoprene oxidation initiated by the hydroxyl radical. 

• The impacts of fracking on air quality

In collaboration with the Met Office our group have also looked at the role of fracking in the UK, and the impacts of unconventional hydrocarbon extraction on air quality. For this work we use a version of the Met Office weather forecast model modified for simulating air pollution. The animation below shows the domain this model covers and the simulated levels of the pollutant ozone (O₃) from the model.  

• Long range transport of trace gases​

Gases that have lifetimes against chemical reaction in the atmosphere greater than a few days can be transported over great distances. The animation below shows how the ozone depleting substance methyl chloride (CH₃Cl) can be emitted from fires in Brazil and transported over several days and 100s of km across South America. Daily average observations of CH3Cl recorded at the AGAGE monitoring site in Barbados are plotted below the animation and you can see that there are several periods where "spikes" are seen in these data. We try to understand both the roles of atmospheric transport and chemistry over these long ranges to answer questions such as how will changes in emissions downwind of us impact the quality of the air we bretahe? 

For more information about the groups published work see my publications below and my Google scholar page. 

For more information about my work check out my ORCID profile. 

Teaching

1A Kinetics of Chemical Reactions

1B Quantitative Environmental Science

Part II Chemistry in the Atmosphere. 

Part III IDP1

Software

For those interested in looking at some simple numerical problems concerning atmospheric chemistry, feel free to have a play with this simple R script: https://bitbucket.org/alex_archibald/atmos_chem_model