Cutting airborne pollutants could have a large effect on climate

Science journalist Tatiana Moreno talks to Dr Apostolos Voulgarakis about the impact of airborne pollutants on our planet's changing climate. Some airborne pollutants change the make-up of our planet's atmosphere where, according to a wealth of recent research, they can strongly influence regional and global climate. "Pollutants such as aerosols [solid and liquid particles suspended in the air] and chemicals that produce ozone gas have always been in the atmosphere - natural smoke from wildfires is just one familiar example. But since the last century we have been adding more of these toxic constituents into the atmosphere and disturbing the planet's climate system," says Dr Apostolos Voulgarakis, a Lecturer in Earth Observation and Climate Physics at Imperial College London. He says scientists need to do more to monitor what this means for regional climate patterns and understand what would happen to the planet's overall climate system if we stop producing these pollutants. Dr Voulgarakis's research in the Department of Physics includes work using climate modelling and satellite data to evaluate the impact of the pollutant ozone. In the troposphere layer, the bottom 12 - 20 kilometres of the atmosphere, this gas arises as a result of emissions such as nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide that are generated by industrial or power plants, car exhausts and air travel.