Alexandra Tsimpidi – Advancing the Representation of Atmospheric Aerosols in Global Models: From Chemical Composition to Environmental Impacts
CESOC kindly invites you to a talk given by Dr. Alexandra Tsimpidi, from the Institute of Climate and Energy Systems (ICE-3), Forschungszentrum Jülich, talking on their work
“Advancing the Representation of Atmospheric Aerosols in Global Models: From Chemical Composition to Environmental Impacts”
Date:Tuesday, 21 Apr. 2026
Time: 16:00 (CEST)
Location: Cologne and Online (TBC)
It is open to any interested person within the CESOC research disciplines (any Earth system sciences, mathematics or computer science).
Please contact info[@]cesoc.net, if you would like to participate.
Abstract:
Atmospheric aerosols play a central role in air quality, atmospheric chemistry, and climate by influencing radiation, cloud formation, and heterogeneous chemical processes. Their composition is controlled by a complex interplay of emissions, chemical transformations and thermodynamic processes involving both inorganic and organic species. However, significant uncertainties remain in understanding the drivers of aerosol composition and in representing these processes in global atmospheric models.
This lecture presents advances in understanding and modeling atmospheric aerosol composition using global chemistry–climate simulations and observational constraints. The global distribution and evolution of aerosol chemical composition are examined together with the processes controlling their variability across different atmospheric environments.
Particular emphasis is placed on aerosol thermodynamics, emissions, and chemical processing that shape inorganic aerosol components such as sulfate, nitrate, and ammonium.The second part focuses on the formation and evolution of organic aerosols and recent developments in the ORACLE framework, including a reduced-complexity configuration (ORACLE-lite) that enables efficient multi-decadal simulations of organic aerosol processes.
The lecture concludes with a brief discussion of implications for climate and Earth system modeling, including recent synthesis efforts such as the FORCeS project (https://forces-project.eu/).