Seminar

Abstract

Cloud and aerosol water are important media for chemical reactions in the atmosphere. Such reactions affect atmospheric oxidant levels and aerosol composition; they also change the speciation of trace elements in the aerosols and atmospheric deposition and thus their impacts on the ecosystems. Humans have increased atmospheric pollutant emissions that resulted in changes in the amounts of aerosol water and in atmospheric acidity and thus in the importance acidity-driven multiphase reactions.

The importance of multiphase chemistry in the global troposphere for oxidants, organic aerosols, atmospheric acidity and bioavailability of trace elements to the ecosystems is discussed based on experimental evidence and 3-D global atmospheric chemistry-transport simulations.

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Maria Kanakidou is a Professor of Computational Environmental Chemistry at the Environmental Chemical Processes Laboratory (ECPL), in the Division of Environmental and Analytical Chemistry of the Department of Chemistry, at the University of Crete in Heraklion, Greece. She is the leader of the modelling group of ECPL. Her research topics of interest include Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics with a focus on atmospheric chemistry, physics, biogeochemical cycles and climate changes due to human activities and on gas/particle interactions: modelling of homogeneous and heterogeneous tropospheric chemistry and aerosol formation, and the study of the human-driven changes in the oxidizing power of the atmosphere and the aerosol composition and their interactions with climate.