The orange haze hanging over your house is, indeed, bad. But the chemistry of wildfire smoke doesn’t have to be visible to be threatening.

Roughly 100 fires are raging out of control in Ontario, sending smoke streaming 1,000 miles to the south and east.

YouTube video by Reuters

Roughly 100 fires are raging out of control in Ontario, sending smoke streaming 1,000 miles to the south and east.

Heavy smoke from several large wildfires blazing in Canada and Minnesota is expected to engulf large swaths of the Midwest and Northeast U.S. this week, exposing millions of people to dangerous air po...

Wildfire smoke is a mixture of air pollutants of which particulate matter is the principal public health threat. Although a large population can be exposed to smoke during a wildfire event, most healt...

Many atmospherically relevant multiphase reactive systems exhibit size-dependent kinetics in laboratory studies, with apparent reaction rates increasing with decreasing droplet size, suggesting an important role for interfacial processes. Here, we present CHAI (CHemistry of Aerosol Interfaces), a physicochemical modeling framework that describes these reactive systems using an additive resistance approach, considering the various mass transfer and reaction processes taking place simultaneously in the gas phase, droplet bulk, and at the droplet surface, and their relative time scales. We demonstrate its applicability to modeling and developing parametrizations for several inorganic and organic oxidation processes in microdroplets and aerosols, including S(IV) to S(VI) conversion, through simulation of experimental data. CHAI is also used to reconcile single-droplet observations with chamber and flow tube experiments and is extended to parametrization of these processes for representation in large-scale atmospheric models. Our results show that neglecting the size dependence of aerosol reaction processes can lead to inaccuracies in atmospheric chemistry modeling, motivating the CHAI approach for modeling these multiphase reactive systems and further experimental studies.

npj Clean Air - Agent-based framework for modeling hyperlocal urban air quality

Air pollution from residential wood burning contributes to thousands of premature deaths annually, with unexpected urban impacts.

The Trump Administration has vowed to dissolve the center that provides critical extreme weather and climate data for our nation.

Solar radiation management is gaining traction as a climate intervention—but new research warns that real-world constraints make it riskier and more uncertain than most models suggest.

Data and partnerships for global clean air and climate"

In the past decades, China has witnessed high air pollution associated with rapid economic development, although regulatory efforts have alleviated the situation since 2013. Haze events characterized ...

The application of 222 nm light from KrCl excimer lamps (GUV222 or far-UVC) is a promising approach to reduce the indoor transmission of airborne pathogens, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus. GUV222 inac...

Canada is having its second worst wildfire season yet. Two scientists explain what a red air alert means and how anyone living in impacted areas can protect themselves.

Reducing air pollution is critical for improving public health, but it has brought big climate trade-offs

Fireworks are synonymous with the Fourth of July, but they come with a hidden cost. Beyond the bright colors and loud booms, they release pollution and harmful chemicals that can impact both the envir...

The country's legacy of mining means that toxic metals could be carried along plumes of smoke, endangering people in its path.