- School of Earth and Environment
- University of Leeds
Biography
Anja Schmidt is a Research Fellow in the Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science. Her current work involves modelling large-scale, sulphur-rich Icelandic volcanic eruptions using both a Global Aerosol Model (GLOMAP) and a Lagrangian particle model (NAME). Anja is currently using these models to simulate the impact of present-day Laki-style eruptions on air pollution and its subsequent impacts on human health and commercial aviation.
Anja’s PhD work addressed the impact of tropospheric volcanic aerosol – whether derived from sporadically erupting or continuously degassing volcanoes, or large-scale Icelandic flood lava events – on global aerosol and the radiative forcing of climate. This was achieved by means of a global aerosol microphysics model (GLOMAP-mode). Anja’s work highlighted that explicitly simulating microphysical processes is important for determining the size, the number concentration and the lifetime of climate-relevant particles.
Research Interests
- tropospheric volcanic aerosol
- Laki-style Icelandic volcanic eruptions
- sulphur emissions from continuously degassing volcanoes
- modelling aerosol microphysical processes
- palaeo-volcanism and mass extinctions
- palaeo-climate: aerosol-chemistry-biosphere interactions