Professor Mathew Evans

Research

Mat’s research interests lie in understanding the reactive composition of the atmosphere. These trace gases are important for understanding air pollution, climate change, stratospheric ozone loss and some ecosystem degradation.  Chemical, physical and biological processes all contribute to determining this composition and need to be quantified if our understanding is to be advanced.

The primary tool for this research is the GEOS-Chem model. This is a community, open source model of the chemistry, transport, emissions and deposition of the atmosphere. The group uses the model to improve our understanding of the composition of the atmosphere, especially the chemistry occurring within it. We use the University of York’s Viking HPC facility for running the model and data processing. 

Much of our research involves using observations to explore the quality of the model predictions. We do this through our involvement in observational field campaigns around the world (Bermuda, Cape Verde, China, Africa) and with laboratory experiments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YabDpKovxfw 

Recent interest has focussed on the chemistry of halogens (Cl, Br, I) in the lower atmosphere, the chemistry of oxides of nitrogen in the remote atmosphere, the influence of the ocean surface and the influence of clouds on atmospheric composition.

We also have interests in looking at new tools to understand this chemistry using spectral methods, machine learning, and ensemble approaches.

Career Summary

• PhD: Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge.
• Post-Doc: Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Post-Doc: Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University.
• NERC Fellow: School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds.
• Lecturer / Reader: School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds
• Professor: Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories, Department of Chemistry / National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of York.

Publications

Selected publications (for a full list see the York Research database link in the right-hand column)

Climate:

• Current and future global climate impacts resulting from COVID-19, Forster, P.M., Forster, H.I., Evans, M.J., ...Smith, C.J., Turnock, S.T., Nature Climate Change, 2020, 10(10), pp. 913–919

• Impact of uncertainties in inorganic chemical rate constants on tropospheric composition and ozone radiative forcing, B. Newsome and M. Evans, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2017,  17, 14333–14352 

Atmospheric chemistry:

• Suppression of surface ozone by an aerosol-inhibited photochemical ozone regime. Ivatt, P.D., Evans, M.J., Lewis, A.C., Nature Geoscience, 2022, 15(7), pp. 536–540
• Global Cancer Risk From Unregulated Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, Kelly, J.M., Ivatt, P.D.,  Evans, M.J,  ..., Engelward, B.P., Selin, N.E., GeoHealth, 2021, 5(9), e2021GH000401

• Alpine ice evidence of a three-fold increase in atmospheric iodine deposition since 1950 in Europe due to increasing oceanic emissions, Legrand M., McConnell J.R., Preunkert S., Arienzo M., Chellman N., Gleason K.,Sherwen T., Evans M.J., Carpenter L.J., PNAS, 27, 115 (48) 12136-12141, 2018, DOI:10.1073/pnas.1809867115
• Active and widespread halogen chemistry in the tropical and subtropical free troposphere, S. Wang et al., PNAS, 112, 30, 9281–9286, DOI:1073/pnas.1505142112

Machine learning:

• Global impact of COVID-19 restrictions on the surface concentrations of nitrogen dioxide and ozone. Keller, C.A., Evans, M.J., Emma Knowland, K., ..., Fakes, L.H., Pawson, S., Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2021, 21(5), pp. 3555–3592

• Application of random forest regression to the calculation of gas-phase chemistry within the GEOS-Chem chemistry model v10,  C. Keller and M. Evans. Geoscientific Model Development, 2019, DOI:10.5194/gmd-12-1209-2019
• A machine-learning-based global sea-surface iodide distribution. T. Sherwen et al., Earth System Science Data, 2019, DOI:10.5194/essd-11-1239-2019

Group

Currently:

• Marcus Brady
• Hansen Cao
• Amy Lees
• Killian Murphy
• Ryan Pound
• Mathew Rowlinson

Past:

• Adedeyo Adedeji 
• Dene Bowdelo
• Roisine Commane
• Peter Edwards
• Daniel Ellis
• Luke Fakes
• Shani Garraway
• Tim Garstin
• Peter Ivatt
• Helen Macintyre
• Eleanor Morris
• Ben Newsome
• Tomas Sherwen
• Katie Smith

Links

• The Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories
• National Centre for Atmospheric Science
• NASA Goddard’s Global Modelling and Assimilation Office. 
• The GEOS-Chem Model.
• The Master Chemical Mechanism