• Anthropogenic and natural emissions;
• Primary and secondary atmospheric aerosols;
• Direct, semi-direct and indirect radiative effects;
• Aerosol–cloud interactions;
• Aerosol microphysics;
• Impact on air quality;
• Toxicity of aerosols;
• Large-scale transport;
• Chemical and physical properties;
• Measurements and modeling

Air quality has become one of the greatest environmental issues of modern times, following improved access to fresh water in many parts of the world. Each year, both outdoor and indoor air pollution are thought to contribute to millions of premature deaths worldwide. Despite increased awareness of the hazards associated with air pollution, there remain significant gaps in our understanding of the science of air quality. Future research will lead to a better understanding of the sources of key atmospheric pollutants, including precursors and the chemistry that leads to production of atmospheric toxins. Improvements are needed in our understanding of the epidemiology of air quality and our understanding is also limited by a lack of comprehensive atmospheric composition measurements in the heterogeneous urban air-shed. Advances in air quality modelling techniques are also needed, as is an understanding of how to bridge the scales between atmospheric models and atmospheric observations. This section aims to publish research that contributes to a better understanding of all these aspects of air quality.

• Sources of atmospheric pollutants;
• Hazardous and toxic substances;
• Air quality modelling;
• Air quality management;
• Sampling and analysis, measurement of air pollution;
• Atmospheric dispersion and transport;
• Air-surface (soil, water, and vegetation) exchange of pollutants;
• Indoor air quality;
• Air pollution meteorology;
• Air pollution climatology;
• Atmospheric impact assessment;
• Dry and wet deposition;
• Atmospheric chemistry;
• Greenhouse gases;
• Pollution control technologies;
• Energy and air pollution;
• Exposure assessment of air pollution.

The association between air quality and human health is one of the most controversial topics in current research. Air pollution is considered one of the leading environmental risk factor for human health globally, especially with regard to ambient fine particular matter (PM2.5), ozone, and some non-criteria pollutants that are considered to have the highest toxicity, such as metals, organics, ultrafine particles, and black carbon. The interplay between these variables and human health is a popular choice of study. Indirect health impacts also exist, for example, due to changes in vector-borne disease risk, food availability, and agricultural production. Both epidemiology and toxicity mechanism studies are needed to understand the role of air quality on specific health outcomes, including inflammation, DNA changes, cancer, respiratory and neurological diseases, severe cognitive deficit, and brain structural change. Notably, scientifically sound metrics to quantitatively measure atmosphere effects on human health, potentially causing several million deaths per year, are still missing. Therefore, it is necessary to develop significant scientific evidence to guide the development of new recommendations, policies, and legislation.

Articles that consider all associations between atmospheric composition and health impacts, especially with regard to air pollution and aerosols, aerobiology, toxicology, and epidemiology in all regions of the world, are welcome. We also welcome multidisciplinary studies that attempt to use the contextualization of science to solve this broad societal challenge.

• air pollution;
• fine aerosol particles;
• ultrafine particles;
• epidemiology
• toxicology;
• exposure;
• doses;
• black carbon;
• metals;
• organics;
• metrics;
• legislation

Climate play a profound role on all human agricultural, economic, and recreational activities. The number of studies and topics involving Earth’s atmosphere and climate have proliferated since the early 20th century. This section will be devoted to topics that remain at the heart of climate inquest, including variability of the atmosphere, oceans, land surface, and cryosphere; past, present, and projected future changes in the climate system; and climate simulation and prediction, the impacts of global climate change, and climate change’s implications for the economy and policy.

Keywords

• Global and regional climate;
• Climate dynamics;
• Climate change and variability;
• Paleoclimate;
• Urban climate;
• Polarclimate;
• Tropical climate;
• Climate change and renewable energy;
• Climate policies, strategies, and management;
• Modelling.

This section will be devoted to topics that remain at the heart of weather, including cross-disciplinary studies devoted to basic or applied research. The editorial board will review all manuscripts submitted for publication in this section. Articles deemed outside the scope of the subject matter listed here may be referred to another section of Atmosphere.

Keywords

• Precipitation, windspeed, and cloud formation;
• General circulation and teleconnections;
• Tropical meteorology;
• Boundary-layer meteorology;
• Mountain meteorology;
• Mesoscale meteorology;
• Physical meteorology;
• Operational meteorology;
• Synoptic and dynamic meteorology;
• Weather analysis and forecasting;
• Numerical methods.

Biometeorology deals with the interactions between atmospheric conditions and living organisms (humans, vegetation and animals) in an interdisciplinary manner, as well as on how to inform, warn, respond to and mitigate adverse effects resulting from activities and climate change. The core questions are to assess how atmospheric conditions can impact on living organisms. The topic covers aspects from daily life to implications of global, regional and local climate change.

Examples are how the well-being and health of humans are related, how urban planning can improve atmospheric conditions (air quality, urban climate), atmospheric effects on agricultural and forest production and how to transfer such knowledge in a broadly understandable way in order to ensure the appropriate usage of such information. Atmospheric conditions include transient ones driven by weather patterns and long-term climatology, as well as how climate change trends may affect these drivers. In this context, the section wants to address issues concerning assessment approaches (incl. emission inventories) for urban climate (incl. heat load and cold stress), air quality and health, as well as warning systems and measures in place to mitigate adverse impacts. Modelling and experimental studies on how environmental management, urban planning and design or traffic regulation can improve living conditions and decrease emissions are particularly welcome. Articles considering the impacts of weather processes with respect to air temperature, air quality and radiation on human well-being and health would also be appropriate. Since several methods are in use to compile bio-weather and air quality forecasts, we are looking forward to discussing such approaches and the way to convey such information to end-users and the public, but particularly to special target cohorts. Another aim is to describe not only how climate and air quality data and information should be transferred and addressed for issues on tourism and recreation, but also for people living in urban areas.

• Human biometeorology;
• Urban bioclimatology;
• Climate, tourism and recreation;
• Thermal comfort and heat stress;
• UV-radiation;
• Weather sensitivity;
• Biometeorology and climate change;
• Agricultural meteorology;
• Forest meteorology;
• Animal biometeorology;
• Climate and health;
• Phenology.

This section aims to provide interdisciplinary scientific studies that devoted to topics on advanced techniques, instruments, and models for assessing the atmosphere and climate. In addition to this, it will also include topics on artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, etc.

Keywords:

• Remote sensing;
• Instruments;
• Laboratory measurement techniques;
• Artificial intelligence;
• Machine learning;
• Data science;
• Model development;
• Algorithm;
• Satellite;
• Carbon balance/carbon cycle;
• Infrared spectroscopy;
• Lidar;
• Radar;
• Unmanned aerial vehicles/drone;
• Point cloud;
• GNSS;
• Microwave radiometry.

Biosphere/Hydrosphere/Land–Atmosphere interactions play a crucial role in weather and climate. Surface water and energy exchange fluxes drive the diurnal and seasonal dynamics of the atmospheric boundary layer, on both local and regional scales. Surface–atmosphere trace gas exchange fluxes affect the chemical composition of the boundary layer, acting both as a source and a sink of atmospheric trace species, including both greenhouse gases and more reactive species that drive atmospheric chemistry, such as isoprene. Together, these surface–atmosphere interactions thus dominate the environmental conditions of life on Earth. As man-made emissions are altering the Earth’s energy budget, surface–atmosphere interactions are changing as well. Magnified or reduced hydrologic cycles and slowly changing biosphere and land surface conditions owing to land use change or increasing frequency of extreme weather and climate occurrences, will not only alter local to regional energy and water fluxes, but also trace gas exchange rates. Both are expected to create feedbacks on atmospheric conditions, including atmospheric chemistry, which will need to be understood to project future risks, and to effectively respond with mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Atmosphere invites contributions analyzing how local to regional energy and trace gas exchanges between the surface and the atmosphere affect atmospheric conditions, including, but no limited to, weather and climate phenomena from local to regional scales, exchange mechanisms, greenhouse gas and other trace gas fluxes and their atmospheric reactions, deposition processes, or anthropogenic land use change effects.

Keywords:

• Atmospheric boundary layer;
• Surface–atmospheric interactions;
• Land–atmospheric interactions;
• Forests–atmosphere interactions;
• Air–sea interactions;
• Wind–wave interactions.