Dr. Valentina Aquila is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Science at AU. As an atmospheric scientist, she studies aerosols, the suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in air, in the atmosphere. She primarily focuses on how stratospheric aerosols from volcanic eruptions, forest fires, and anthropogenic sources can alter Earth’s climate system.
She co-authored a research paper, Volcanic Drivers of Stratospheric Sulfur in GFDL ESM4, that revealed findings from a simulation modeling levels of sulfur dioxide (SO2) in the atmosphere from 1989-2014. This is critical research, as sulfur takes part in many chemical processes in the atmosphere, including ozone depletion and radiation scattering.
In the study, Dr. Aquila and her colleagues modified the standard modeling program to better simulate sulfur released into the atmosphere during volcanic eruptions, the primary sources of sulfur variation. The simulation focused on the 1991 eruption ofMount Pinatubo and years afterward, and they evaluated the effectiveness of the model by comparing the simulation of sulfur aerosols with existing data and observations taken from the Mount Pinatubo eruption. Additionally, they analyzed the model by varying parameters such as injection height, emission amount, and aerosol size. They found that the best combination of parameters depends on the metric they chose to evaluate, revealing that many challenges still exist for future research in eruption modeling.
Dr. Aquila’s research has advanced our understanding of volcanic eruptions, laying the foundations for a more precise model, a critical step in understanding how volcanic eruptions impact the climate.
You can read the paper here: 10.1029/2022MS003532
