Reactivit'Air

The annual seminar of the Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Atmospheric Science – From Molecular and Biological Processes to the Global Climate led by Academician Markku Kulmala took place in Helsinki last week from 4 to 6 October 2017. The seminar offers a unique opportunity for participants to share their work and discover the work of collaborators beyond their immediate field of research to foster innovative future research. What is a Centre of Excellence? Funding provided by the Academy of Finland to CoEs aims at creating research and training networks to achieve long-term (and even risky!) objectives. The Academy of Finland's Centres of Excellence (CoE) are the flagships of Finnish research. They are close to or at the very cutting edge of science in their fields, carving out new avenues for research, developing creative research environments and training new talented researchers for the Finnish research system and Finnish business and industry. (Source:  A...

Today we are pleased to welcome M.Sc. Anssi Liikanen as a new member of the Air Quality group at the Finnish Meteorological Institute. Anssi starts his PhD studies during which he will develop ozone reactivity measurements and conduct field measurements. As a part of my  REAC-FORTE  project (Academy of Finland, grant 307797 ), ozone reactivity will be used as a tool to assess our understanding of tree emissions and air chemistry in forest air at high latitude (Finland) and high altitude (Switzerland). Biogenic volatile organic compounds emitted by vegetation, such as isoprene and monoterpenes, have a double carbon-carbon bond in their structures, enabling reaction with ozone. By comparing the total ozone reactivity with the reactivity expected from known emissions in combination with other measurement techniques, we will be able to know how much of the chemical composition of forest air is still not well understood. Anssi's background in atmospheric sciences with a focu...