The Editorial Office of Environmental Science: Atmospheres is excited to announce a special issue dedicated to the International Conference on Air Benefit and Cost and Attainment Assessment (ABaCAS) 2024. This prestigious conference, held annually, serves as a global forum for scientists to exchange knowledge and strategies related to air pollution control and the pathway to carbon neutrality.

We invite all researchers who present their work at ABaCAS 2024 to submit their papers for consideration in this special issue. This special issue will encompass a broad range of topics, reflecting the diverse and cutting-edge research presented at the conference. The nine tentative areas of focus include:

1. Emission inventory for atmospheric pollutants and greenhouse gases
2. Advancing technologies applied in source emission measurements
3. “Ground-air-space” monitoring for air pollutants and greenhouse gases
4. Air quality modelling and cost-benefit analysis for air pollution control
5. Roadmap to synergistic control of air pollutants and carbon
6. Urban air pollution control
7. Atmospheric environment and health
8. Big data and artificial intelligence in the atmospheric environment
9. Atmospheric haze chemistry

This collection will be supported by our Guest Editors: Dr Hongliang Zhang (Fudan University), Dr Song Guo (Peking University), Dr Biwu Chu (Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Dr Bo Zheng (Tsinghua University). We look forward to your contributions to this special issue, which will highlight the latest advancements and foster continued innovation in the field of atmospheric sciences.

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When you publish with Environmental Science: Atmospheres you can:

• Put your trust in both our rigorous peer review process and fast times to publication – our average time to decision for peer-reviewed manuscripts is just 38 days.
• Expect your work to be promoted through our journal social media (@EnvSciRSC and LinkedIn)
• Be confident of a global audience for your work. This means that dissemination of this work will likely go beyond chemists and reach a broader audience.

Environmental Science: Atmospheres publishes high quality research in fundamental and applied atmospheric chemistry. The journal scope spans the entirety of Earth’s atmosphere, and studies addressing the interactions of indoor air pollutants with outdoor air, or considering human health effects, are encouraged. We offer authors the option to publish the peer review history alongside their article.

Article publication online and in issues will occur without delay to ensure the timely dissemination of the work. The articles will then be assembled on the RSC Publishing platform and promoted as a web-based thematic collection, to permit readers to consult and download individual contributions from the entire series.

If you’re interested, we invite you to submit your research today on our platform, quoting ‘EAABaCAS24’ in the ‘Comments to the Editor’ when submitting your manuscript. You can get in touch with the editorial office with any questions you may have about this collection.

Submit your recent research on Solar Radiation Management to our new ES: Atmospheres collection! 

We invite you to contribute to our collection on Solar Radiation Management (SRM), also known as Solar Geoengineering. Understanding the mechanisms and potential impacts of SRM, as well as the broader field of solar geoengineering, can refine climate models, leading to more accurate projections of their efficacy and risks. SRM has the potential to reduce climate impacts globally, yet it also carries significant risks and uncertainties. For more information on the collection, which closes for submissions on 31 Jan 2025 , see our open call for papers.

When you publish with Environmental Science: Atmospheres you can:

• Put your trust in both our rigorous peer review process and fast times to publication – our average time to decision for peer-reviewed manuscripts is just 38 days.
• Expect your work to be promoted through our journal social media (@EnvSciRSC and LinkedIn)
• Be confident of a global audience for your work. This means that dissemination of this work will likely go beyond chemists and reach a broader audience.

Environmental Science: Atmospheres publishes high quality research in fundamental and applied atmospheric chemistry. The journal scope spans the entirety of Earth’s atmosphere, and studies addressing the interactions of indoor air pollutants with outdoor air, or considering human health effects, are encouraged. We offer authors the option to publish the peer review history alongside their article.

Article publication online and in issues will occur without delay to ensure the timely dissemination of the work. The articles will then be assembled on the RSC Publishing platform and promoted as a web-based thematic collection, to permit readers to consult and download individual contributions from the entire series.

If you’re interested, we invite you to submit your research today, quoting ‘EASRM24’ in the ‘Comments to the Editor’ when submitting your manuscript. You can get in touch with the editorial office with any questions you may have about this collection.

Environmental Science: Atmospheres is pleased to highlight the content that makes up our themed collection on ab initio reaction mechanisms. The full collection can be read here. In this blog, Associate Editor Stephen Klippenstein shares his thoughts on this topic and the articles published here:

The chemistry of the atmosphere is incredibly complex, with an enormous number of coupled reactions affecting key aspects of the atmosphere such as the concentration of aerosols. Various proposed responses to the global need for reducing our carbon emissions may dramatically alter emissions into the atmosphere. Quantitative models of the effect of such emissions are urgently needed. Such models rely on ever more detailed and accurate descriptions of a wide variety of elementary reactions. Ab initio studies of reaction mechanisms are a major contributor to the remarkable progress in our understanding of complex atmospheric reaction mechanisms.

This mini collection of articles provides three topical examples of the community efforts to advance our abilities to accurately model reaction mechanisms. The paper by Nguyen and Stanton on “Ab initio rate coefficients for the reaction of OH and H₂O₂ under troposphere and lower stratosphere conditions” demonstrates the utility of benchmark ab initio kinetics in mapping the rate constants for a simple but important reaction across wide ranges of temperature and pressure. There is an urgent to understand the global warming potentials of the molecules arising from the degradation of hydrofluoroolefins, which are a new class of refrigerants that are rapidly growing in importance. The paper by Watson and Beames on “Bimolecular sinks of Criegee intermediates derived from hydrofluoroolefins – a computational analysis” uses ab initio kinetics to map out a number of the key reaction rates and pathways for this new class of molecules. Highly oxygenated molecules, which are formed from the oxidation of various hydrocarbons, are important precursors to the formation of aerosols. The chemistry involved in the formation of such molecules is poorly understood. The reaction of two RO₂ radicals provides one route to molecular growth that is expected to contributed to highly oxygenated molecule formation. The paper by Murphy et al. on “Accretion product formation in the self-reaction of ethene-derived hydroxy peroxy radicals” explores this chemistry in detail for a prototypical atmospheric hydrocarbon radical.

We hope you find these articles interesting. If you would like to contribute work on a similar topic, please feel free to send a proposal to esatmospheres-rsc@rsc.org, where a member of our editorial team will be happy to help.

We are delighted to announce that the Environmental Science: Atmospheres cross journal themed collection on non-exhaust substances from roads and road traffic is now online.

Non-exhaust substances from road traffic, arising from the wear of vehicle parts (such as from the brakes, tyres and clutch), road wear and road dust resuspension, are an emerging issue for our environment and public health. This collection aims to improve our knowledge of the composition and quantity of these substances, their impact on our surroundings and the potential of technological and non-technological mitigation measures.

Our collection was guest edited by Dr Fulvio Amato (CSIC, Barcelona) and Dr Ye Liu (University of Leeds).

Read the full issue online.

It includes:

Ultrafine particle emissions from dry clutches: number concentration, size distribution and chemical composition

Rikard Hjelm, Yezhe Lyu, Alessandro Mancini, Bozhena Tsyupa, Minghui Tu, Ulf Olofsson and Jens Wahlström

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2024,4, 35-42, DOI: 10.1039/D3EA00127J

Microplastic distribution and ecological risks: investigating road dust and stormwater runoff across land uses

M. Alamgir Kabir, Muhammed A. Bhuiyan, Guomin Zhang and Biplob Kumar Pramanik

Environ. Sci.: Adv., 2024,3, 62-75, DOI: 10.1039/D3VA00128H

Unrecognized volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds from brake wear

Perraud, D. R. Blake, L. M. Wingen, B. Barletta, P. S. Bauer, J. Campos, M. J. Ezell, A. Guenther, K. N. Johnson, M. Lee, S. Meinardi, J. Patterson, E. S. Saltzman, A. E. Thomas, J. N. Smith and B. J. Finlayson-Pitts

Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts, 2024, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/D4EM00024B

Traceable determination of metal composition of tyres using tandem ICP-MS and benchmarking of emissions inventories

Emma C. Braysher, Andrew S. Brown, Richard J. C. Brown and Nick Molden

Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts, 2024,26, 298-304, DOI: 10.1039/D3EM00344B

Induction of toxicity in human colon cells and organoids by size- and composition-dependent road dust

Sung Bum Park, Eun-Ah Kim, Ki Young Kim and Byumseok Koh

RSC Adv., 2023,13, 2833-2840, DOI: 10.1039/D2RA07500H

We hope that you enjoy reading this collection of articles. Please get in touch if you have any questions about this themed collection or want to contribute to the growing work on non-exhaust emissions from roads and road traffic.

Consider our collection for your next atmospheric science publication!

We invite you to contribute to our collection highlighting air quality in emerging economies. Understanding the sources and composition of air pollutants in these regions is essential for implementing effective pollution control measures and mitigating the adverse impacts on human health and the environment. Addressing air quality issues in emerging economic regions is important for sustainable development, as poor air quality can impede economic growth and hinder progress towards achieving global environmental goals. For more information on the collection, which closes for submissions on 15th December 2024, see our open call for papers.

When you publish with Environmental Science: Atmospheres you can:

• Put your trust in both our rigorous peer review process and fast times to publication – our average time to decision for peer-reviewed manuscripts is just 38 days.
• Expect your work to be promoted through our journal social media (@EnvSciRSC and LinkedIn)
• Be confident of a global audience for your work. This means that dissemination of this work will likely go beyond chemists and reach a broader audience.

Environmental Science: Atmospheres publishes high quality research in fundamental and applied atmospheric chemistry. The journal scope spans the entirety of Earth’s atmosphere, and studies addressing the interactions of indoor air pollutants with outdoor air, or considering human health effects, are encouraged. We offer authors the option to publish the peer review history alongside their article.

Article publication online and in issues will occur without delay to ensure the timely dissemination of the work. The articles will then be assembled on the RSC Publishing platform and promoted as a web-based thematic collection, to permit readers to consult and download individual contributions from the entire series.

As a gold open access journal, Environmental Science: Atmospheres levies an article-processing charge (APC) upon acceptance. However, we do not want this to be a barrier to participation, and we would support waiver and discount applications from authors based in emerging economies.

If you’re interested, we invite you to submit your research today, quoting ‘EAAQEmEc24’ in the ‘Comments to the Editor’ when submitting your manuscript.

Could our collection be the ideal platform for your next atmospheric science publication?

We invite you to contribute to our collection highlighting atmospheric peroxy radicals. Understanding the chemistry and behaviour of peroxy radicals can help improve air quality models, leading to more accurate predictions of pollution levels and their impacts on human health and the environment. Additionally, peroxy radicals are key intermediates in atmospheric oxidation processes, influencing the atmospheric lifetime of greenhouse gases and contributing to climate change dynamics. For more information on the collection, which closes for submissions on 30th November 2024, see our open call for papers.

When you publish with Environmental Science: Atmospheres you can:

• Put your trust in both our rigorous peer review process and fast times to publication – our average time to decision for peer-reviewed manuscripts is just 38 days.
• Expect your work to be promoted through our journal social media (@EnvSciRSC and LinkedIn)
• Be confident of a global audience for your work. This means that dissemination of this work will likely go beyond chemists and reach a broader audience.

Environmental Science: Atmospheres publishes high quality research in fundamental and applied atmospheric chemistry. The journal scope spans the entirety of Earth’s atmosphere, and studies addressing the interactions of indoor air pollutants with outdoor air, or considering human health effects, are encouraged. We offer authors the option to publish the peer review history alongside their article.

Article publication online and in issues will occur without delay to ensure the timely dissemination of the work. The articles will then be assembled on the RSC Publishing platform and promoted as a web-based thematic collection, to permit readers to consult and download individual contributions from the entire series.

If you’re interested, we invite you to submit your research today, quoting ‘EAPeroxy24’ in the ‘Comments to the Editor’ when submitting your manuscript.

Could our collection be the ideal platform for your next atmospheric science publication on traffic non-exhaust substances?

We invite you to contribute to our collection highlighting traffic non-exhaust substances and their impact on air quality, health, and possible remediation measures. Non-exhaust emissions from road traffic, arising from the wear of vehicle parts (such as from the brakes, tyres and clutch), road wear and road dust resuspension, are an emerging issue for air quality and public health. It is therefore necessary to improve our knowledge on the current impact of such substances in the air we breathe and the potential of technological and non-technological mitigation measures. For more information on the collection, which closes for submissions on 31st March 2024, see our open call for papers.

When you publish with Environmental Science: Atmospheres you can:

• Put your trust in both our rigorous peer review process and fast times to publication – which are less than 9 weeks after submission across all our journals.
• Expect your work to be promoted through our journal social media (@EnvSciRSC)
• Be confident of a global audience for your work. This means that dissemination of this work will likely go beyond chemists and reach a broader audience.

Environmental Science: Atmospheres publishes high quality research in fundamental and applied atmospheric chemistry. The journal scope spans the entirety of Earth’s atmosphere, and studies addressing the interactions of indoor air pollutants with outdoor air, or considering human health effects, are encouraged. We offer authors the option to publish the peer review history alongside their article.

Article publication online and in issues will occur without delay to ensure the timely dissemination of the work. The articles will then be assembled on the RSC Publishing platform and promoted as a web-based thematic collection, to permit readers to consult and download individual contributions from the entire series.

Please note that accepted manuscripts will be subject to an article-processing charge (APC) unless your institute has an existing agreement with the RSC that covers publications in our gold open access journals. More information about charges, discounts, and waivers are available here.

If you’re interested, we invite you to submit your research today, quoting ‘EANexAir24’ when submitting your manuscript.

We are delighted to announce that the Environmental Science: Atmospheres themed issue Bioaerosols: detection, transport and risk assessment is now online.

In this gold open-access themed collection, we focus on bioaerosols, which are airborne particles that are living or originate from living organisms, such as bacteria, viruses, fungal spores and pollen.

Guest edited by Cindy Morris (INRAE, Avignon), Xialoe Zhang (ETH Zurich), Malin Alvsed (Lund University) and Joshua Santarpia (University of Nebraska Medical Center) this collection focuses on how bioaerosols can have significant impacts on human health, agriculture and ecoystems.

Read the full issue online

It includes:

Resolving the controls over the production and emission of ice-nucleating particles in sea spray

Thomas C. J. Hill, Francesca Malfatti, Christina S. McCluskey, Gregory P. Schill, Mitchell V. Santander, Kathryn A. Moore, Anne Marie Rauker, Russell J. Perkins, Mauro Celussi, Ezra J. T. Levin, Kaitlyn J. Suski, Gavin C. Cornwell, Christopher Lee, Paola Del Negro, Sonia M. Kreidenweis, Kimberly A. Prather and Paul J. DeMott

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2023, Advance Article, DOI: 10.1039/D2EA00154C

Assessing the efficiency of water-soluble organic compound biodegradation in clouds under various environmental conditions

Lucas Pailler, Nolwenn Wirgot, Muriel Joly, Pascal Renard, Camille Mouchel-Vallon, Angelica Bianco, Maud Leriche, Martine Sancelme, Aurélie Job, Luc Patryl, Patrick Armand, Anne-Marie Delort, Nadine Chaumerliac and Laurent Deguillaume

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2023,3, 731-748, DOI: 10.1039/D2EA00153E

Drone-based particle monitoring above two harmful algal blooms (HABs) in the USA

Landon Bilyeu, Bryan Bloomfield, Regina Hanlon, Javier González-Rocha, Stephen J. Jacquemin, Andrew P. Ault, Johnna A. Birbeck, Judy A. Westrick, Hosein Foroutan, Shane D. Ross, Craig W. Powers and David G. Schmale

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2022,2, 1351-1363, DOI: 10.1039/D2EA00055E

Emission of primary bioaerosol particles from Baltic seawater

Gabriel P. Freitas, Christian Stolle, Paul H. Kaye, Warren Stanley, Daniel P. R. Herlemann, Matthew Edward Salter and Paul Zieger

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2022,2, 1170-1182, DOI: 10.1039/D2EA00047D

Characterization of single fungal aerosol particles in a reactive atmospheric environment using time-resolved optical trapping-Raman spectroscopy (OT-RS)

Yukai Ai, Chuji Wang, Yong-Le Pan and Gorden Videen

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2022,2, 591-600, DOI: 10.1039/D2EA00030J

Speech-generated aerosol settling times and viral viability can improve COVID-19 transmission prediction

Alan Y. Gu, Yanzhe Zhu, Jing Li and Michael R. Hoffmann

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2022,2, 34-45, DOI: 10.1039/D1EA00013F

We hope that you enjoy reading this collection of articles. Please get in touch if you have any questions about this themed collection or want to contribute to the growing work on bioaerosols.

Environmental Science: Atmospheres is an international and collaborative journal

Collaborations are becoming increasingly important for the atmospheric sciences. Atmospheric chemistry doesn’t recognize boundaries, requiring interactions from researchers from different disciplines and different backgrounds to address research challenges. As an international journal, Environmental Science: Atmospheres believes that international research enables us to publish and disseminate research findings to different populations, cultures, and regions. Collaborative research is the cornerstone for developing strong relationships and solving global challenges in the atmospheric sciences.

We are delighted to be sharing with you a selection of international and collaborative work published in the journal:

Determination and analysis of time series of CFC-11 (CCl₃F) from FTIR solar spectra, in situ observations, and model data in the past 20 years above Jungfraujoch (46°N), Lauder (45°S), and Cape Grim (40°S) stations

Irene Pardo Cantos, Emmanuel Mahieu, Martyn P. Chipperfield, Dan Smale, James W. Hannigan, Marina Friedrich, Paul Fraser, Paul Krummel, Maxime Prignon, Jamal Makkor, Christian Servais and John Robinson

Quantifying the impact of relative humidity on human exposure to gas phase squalene ozonolysis products

Pascale S. J. Lakey, Andreas Zuend, Glenn C. Morrison, Thomas Berkemeier, Jake Wilson, Caleb Arata, Allen H. Goldstein, Kevin R. Wilson, Nijing Wang, Jonathan Williams, Jonathan P. D. Abbatt and Manabu Shiraiwa

Emission of primary bioaerosol particles from Baltic seawater

 Gabriel P. Freitas, Christian Stolle, Paul H. Kaye, Warren Stanley, Daniel P. R. Herlemann, Matthew Edward Salter and Paul Zieger

Precursor apportionment of atmospheric oxygenated organic molecules using a machine learning method

 Xiaohui Qiao, Xiaoxiao Li, Chao Yun, Nina Sarnela, Rujing Yin, Yishuo Guo, Lei Yao, Wei Nie, Dandan Huang, Zhe Wang, Federico Bianchi, Yongchun Liu, Neil M. Donahue, Markku Kulmala and Jingkun Jiang

There are many benefits of publishing with Environmental Science: Atmospheres including:

• Free Gold Open Access publication – all article processing charges are waived until the 1^st of July 2023
• Rapid times to publication – our average time to decision for peer-reviewed manuscripts is just 35 days†
• Flexible article types with no word count restrictions or colour charges
• Broad readership: our global audience provides maximum exposure for your work
• Publicity on Twitter and WeChat for featured articles

We would be delighted to hear from you if you are interested in submitting to the journal or if you would like any further information. If you are interested in publishing your next paper with us, please reply by return email so that we can send you an invited submission link.

We are delighted to announce that the Environmental Science: Atmospheres and Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts themed issue on Indoor Air Quality is now online.

Although we spend much of our time indoors, most research and public attention to date has focused on ambient air, as has policy action to reduce exposure to, and the health impacts of, air pollution. This has started to change.

This collection focuses on chemistry relating to indoor air quality, including:

• Studies advancing the field of environmental sciences in surface chemistry, microbial activity, photochemistry, and exposure science.
• Studies using both theoretical and experimental methods.
• Various approaches including instrument development, measurements, modelling and consideration of policy and health impacts of indoor air quality.

The collection is complemented by an editorial written by the Editors-in-Chief and the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Policy and Evidence team.

Read the full issue online

It includes:

Editorial 

Introduction to indoor air quality

Neil M. Donahue, Kristopher McNeill, Daniel S. Korbel and Hannah G. Macdonald

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2023, Advance Article

Aerosol emissions and their volatility from heating different cooking oils at multiple temperatures

Sumit Sankhyan, Kayley Zabinski, Rachel E. O’Brien, Steven Coyan, Sameer Patel and Marina Vance

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2022,2, 1364-1375

Partitioning of reactive oxygen species from indoor surfaces to indoor aerosolsv

Glenn C. Morrison, Azin Eftekhari, Pascale S.J. Lakey, Manabu Shiraiwa, Bryan E. Cummings, Michael S. Warning and Brent Williams

Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts, 2022,24, 2310-2323

Real-time measurements of product compounds formed through the reaction of ozone with breath exhaled VOCs

Xin Xu, Hongwei Pang, Chao Liu, Kangyi Wang, Gwendal Loisel, Lei Li, Sasho Gligorovski and Xue Li

Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts, 2022,24, 2237-2248

Particulate matter in a lockdown home: evaluation, calibration, results and health risk from an IoT enable low-cost sensor network for residential air monitoring

Nicole Cowell, Lee Chapman, William Bloss, Deepchandra Srivastava, Suzanne Bartington and Ajit Singh

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2023,3, 65-84

Near-source hypochlorous acid emissions form indoor bleach cleaning

Annastacia D. Stubbs, Melodie Lao, Chen Wang, Jonathan P. D. Abbatt, John Hoffnagle, Trevor C. VandenBoer and Tara F. Kahan

Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts, 2023,25, 56-65

Emerging investigator series: an instrument to measure and speciate the total reactive nitrogen budget indoors: description and field measurement

Leigh R. Crilley, Melodie Lao, Leyla Salehpoor and Trevor C. VandenBoer

Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts, 2023, Advance Article

Investigation of indoor air quality in university residences using low-cost sensors

Rowzhon Afroz, Xinyang Guo, Chu-Wen Cheng, Ariel Delorme, Ryan Duruisseau-Kuntz and Ran Zhao

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2023,3, 347-362

Indoor particulate matter (PM) from cooking in UK students’ studio flats and associated intervention strategies: evaluation of cooking methods, PM concentrations and personal exposures using low-cost sensors

Ruijie Tang and Christian Pfrang

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2023, Advance Article

Modeling the Fate and Involuntary Exposure to Tetrahydrocannabinol Emitted from Indoor Cannabis Smoking

Amirashkan Askair, Frank Wania and Arthur Chan

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2023, Accepted Manuscript

Acetaldehyde in the indoor environment

Tunga Salthammer

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2023, Advance Article

Human skin oil: a major ozone reactant indoors

Charles J Weschler and William W Nazaroff

Environ. Sci.: Atmos., 2023, Accepted Manuscript

We hope that you enjoy reading this collection of articles. Please get in touch if you have any questions about this themed collection or want to contribute to the growing work on indoor air quality.