Alex Archibald

Research Area

I study how the gases and particles in our atmosphere have changed, will change, and what this change means for air quality, habitability and more broadly life as we know it.

My research involves developing and running computer models that simulate the physical and chemical processes at play in the atmosphere. Some of these models are very complex (100s thousand lines of code), some are very simple (10s of lines of code) and some are in between. I’m equaly  interested in the role of the atmosphere on life, going back deep into Earth’s history as I am in understanding how changes to the composition of the atmosphere can help us towards a safe and stable climate under Net Zero. I’m passionate about team work and many of the projects we have in the group involve elements of being part of a much larger team. I also value independence in research and strive for a healthy balance of research that’s targeted at answering timely problems (such as what role could hydrogen play in the energy transition) as well as research that’s more aimed at pushing the frontiers of our understanding (such as how important peroxy radical-water adduct reactions in the chemistry of the atmosphere).

Project Interests

I am particularly interested in developing projects that make use of combining complex model data and observations. I’m interested in using data that have been generated for large projects, like the IPCC CMIP6 database, or in generating and analysing data from novel experiments that are performed as part of the PhD to address specific research questions. In either case I’m keen that a  focus in the research is in using and understanding the UKESM model, which is the UKs flagship Earth System Model.

At present we have projects that use or make use of UKESM data to address topics such as: climate overshoots and their impacts; short lived climate forcers and their potential in climate mitigation; environmental impacts of the hydrogen economy; Net Zero aviation emissions; quantifying and reducing model uncertainty in atmospheric chemistry processes.