Current research

What are we working on?

Most of our research is about using models to understand the chemistry of our atmosphere and how it interacts with other physical processes. A deeper understanding of atmospheric chemistry is an essential foundation for trusting model predictions of air quality and climate effects.

We work on a wide range of science problems, including stratospheric ozone changes, global tropospheric composition, greenhouse gas fluxes and the chemistry of mesospheric metal layers.

A large fraction of our research involves confronting models with the best available data.

A major part of our research is development and maintenance of the TOMCAT-SLIMCAT chemical transport model. We also use a range of other models: The old Met Office Unified Model (UM, UMSLIMCAT), the new UK Chemistry and Aerosol Model (UKCA) and the NCAR Community Earth System Model (CESM, CAM, WACCM).

Current Funded Projects

This is a list of funded projects. It covers most of our current research, but a lot of our research doesn't easily fall under specific projects, so please also see our Science Highlights. The models used in the projects are shown in [ ].

SHIVA (EU) Stratospheric Halogens in a Varying Atmosphere [TOMCAT-SLIMCAT, UKCA]

TropHal (NERC) [TOMCAT-SLIMCAT]

4M (NERC) Multiscale Modelling of Mesospheric Metal Chemistry [WACCM]

AMAZONICA (NERC) [TOMCAT]

MAPLE (NERC) Middle Atmosphere Processes and Lifetime Estimates [UKCA, WACCM, TOMCAT]

SOLCLI (NERC) Solar Variability [TOMCAT, UM, UKCA]

PREMIER EX (NERC) Mission support for PREMIER. [TOMCAT-SLIMCAT]

NCEO (NERC) [TOMCAT-SLIMCAT]

NCAS (NERC) [TOMCAT-SLIMCAT]

dCSE (NAG) [TOMCAT-SLIMCAT]

Previous Projects

COTTEE (NERC)

GEOMON (EU)

SCOUT-O3 (EU)

SOLAS (NERC) Global Modelling of Aerosol in Support of SOLAS-UK. Our findings are reported here.