Ruth Doherty

I am a Professor in Atmospheric Sciences in the School of GeoSciences and a member of the contemporary climate research group and the Population Health and Research Place group. My official university staff page can be found here.

My research interests lie in the areas of modelling global, regional and urban-scale air pollution and its impacts on human health and
in climate-chemistry interactions and how these are influenced by Climate Change and year-to-year variations in climate. My current projects focus on London, Glasgow, Beijing and Delhi.
Before I came to Edinburgh university, I worked in the field of Climate Change research at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, UK and in the Institute for Study of the Environment at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA.

Teaching: I lecture courses on Meteorology: Weather and Climate,  Atmospheric Science Field Skills, Natural Hazards: Meteorological hazards, Earth’s Atmospheric composition

My research interests are:

• Modelling atmospheric composition and air quality at global and regional scales: climate-chemistry interactions, intercontinental transport of air pollution
• Air quality and human health impacts
• Climate change/variability and its influence on air pollution and human health

Recent and Current Projects:

• The health and equity impacts of climate change mitigation measures on indoor and outdoor air pollution exposure (HEICCAM)
• Air Pollution Solutions for Vulnerable Groups (CleanAir4V)
• MAQS-Health (Multi-Model Air Quality System for Health Research)
• Coupled Urban and Regional proceses: Effects on AIR quality (NERC) CureAir
• A new integrated decision-making tool for urban health and policy evaluation QCumber-envHealth
• An Integrated Study of AIR Pollution PROcesses in Beijing (AIRPRO)
• Air Pollution Impacts on Cardiopulmonary Disease in Beijing: An integrated study of Exposure Science, Toxicogenomics and Environmental Epidemiology (APIC)
• Air pollution, pollen, asthma and hayfever and their interactive effect on cognitive development: environment & health data linkage feasibility study
• Task Force on Hemispheric transport of Air pollution: phase II climate change impacts on air pollution (TF-HTAP)
• International Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution (iCACGP)

Current Staff and PhD Students

• Air quality in Beijing’s haze and urban environment (PhD student: Michael Biggart)
• Air pollution in industrialised regions of China: the chemical environment and the impacts of long-range transport (PhD student: Zhenze Liu)
• The influence of the East Asian monsoon on PM2.5 air quality in China(PhD student: Zixuan Jia)

Former PhD Students

• Impacts of emission control policies and climate change on air quality over Europe (PhD student: Jamie Kelly)
• Air Pollution control measures and Climate Change effects on Multi-Pollutants and their Health Impacts (PhD student: Sara Fenech)
• Lightning and tropospheric ozone in global models: present-day and future (Declan Finney)
• Investigation of the climate-related dynamics of ammonia emission, dispersion & deposition (Andrea Moring)
• Linking mid-latitude storms, atmospheric composition and climate variability (Emma Knowland)
• Performing climate change vulnerability assessments at the local level in Scotland (Marta Soares)
• Investigating the effect of farmerland-use decisions on rural landscapes using an agent-based model approach (Eleni Karali)
• Simulating the carbon cycling of croplands – model developments, diagnosis, and regional application through data assimilation (Oliver Sus)