Professor William Bloss PhD

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Professor of Atmospheric Science
Head of College of Life & Environmental Sciences

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 414 4173 (Research Office)
Email: w.j.bloss@bham.ac.uk

View my research portal

Address: School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

William Bloss is an atmospheric scientist, specialising in air pollution and atmospheric chemistry. His research applies a combination of laboratory studies, field measurements and numerical models to understand the causes of poor air quality, and support development of effective policy measures to protect human and environmental health. Recent work has ranged from Clean Air Science for the West Midlands (WM-Air) to identification of air pollution sources in Delhi and Beijing.

Qualifications

PhD Atmospheric Chemistry - University of Cambridge
BA Natural Sciences (Chemistry) - University of Cambridge

Biography

William (Bill) Bloss completed his undergraduate degree and PhD at the University of Cambridge, the latter concerning laboratory studies of atmospheric halogen oxide reactions. He then worked as a Caltech Postdoctoral Scholar at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, studying stratospheric ozone depletion, and as a Research Fellow and then Lecturer at the University of Leeds, where he worked on field measurements of atmospheric chemistry in the UK, Europe and Antarctica.

He moved to the School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham in 2007. His research determines the causes of poor air quality, and supports development of effective policy measures to protect human and environmental health. Recent work has ranged from Clean Air Science for the West Midlands (WM-Air) to identification of air pollution sources in Delhi and Beijing.

Teaching

BSc Environmental Sciences

MSc Air Pollution Management and Control

Postgraduate supervision

Please contact me if you are interested in studying for a PhD with the group. I'm happy to discuss ideas for PhD research projects and applications for funded fellowship schemes, but please be aware we do not have funding other than for openly advertised positions. For more information see my personal research pages at : http://www.williambloss.com

Research

Atmospheric processing affects the current and future composition of our air, with impacts upon human and environmental health, air quality and climate. My research group addresses areas of atmospheric chemistry and clean air science, including

- Understanding the sources and transformations of air pollutants in the urban atmosphere, ranging from trends in the UK to developing megacities such as Delhi

- Quantifying the sources and sinks for atmospheric oxidants: impacts from processes such as new reactive nitrogen emissions and particulate-mediated renoxification

- Applying air pollution science to improve local and regional air quality policy measures

Our work combines atmospheric field measurements, simulation chamber and laboratory studies and numerical modelling approaches. Fundamental understanding of the atmospheric chemical system is placed in an applied context: working with partners to apply clean air science for improved human and environmental health.

See also my personal research pages and the WM-Air Project

Other activities

Clean Air Advisory Panel for Wales
Strategic Advisory Board, RESAS Scotland
Royal Society of Chemistry: CChem, FRSC
RSC Environmental Chemistry Group (Chair, 2012 – 2014)

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Greenham, S, Ferranti, E, Jones, S, Zhong, J, Grayson, N, Needle, S, Acton, J, MacKenzie, AR & Bloss, W 2024, 'An open access approach to mapping climate risk and vulnerability for decision-making: A case study of Birmingham, United Kingdom', Climate Services, vol. 36, 100521. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2024.100521

Zhang, Y, Sun, J, Shen, X, Chandani, VL, Du, M, Song, C, Dai, Y, Hu, G, Yang, M, Tilstone, GH, Jordan, T, Dall'Olmo, G, Liu, Q, Nemitz, E, Callaghan, A, Brean, J, Sommariva, R, Beddows, D, Langford, B, Bloss, W, Acton, W, Harrison, R, Dall'Osto, M & Shi, Z 2024, 'Measurements of particulate methanesulfonic acid above the remote Arctic Ocean using a high resolution aerosol mass spectrometer', Atmospheric Environment, vol. 331, 120538. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2024.120538

Hall, J, Zhong, J, Jowett, S, Mazzeo, A, Thomas, GN, Bryson, JR, Dewar, S, Inglis, N, Wolstencroft, M, Muller, C, Bloss, W, Harrison, R & Bartington, S 2024, 'Regional Impact Assessment of Air Quality Improvement: The Air Quality Lifecourse Assessment Tool (AQ-LAT) for the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA)', Environmental Pollution, vol. 356, 123871. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2024.123871

Zhong, J, Stocker, J, Cai, X, Harrison, RM & Bloss, WJ 2024, 'Street-scale air quality modelling over the West Midlands, United Kingdom: Effect of idealised traffic reduction scenarios', Urban Climate, vol. 55, 101961. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2024.101961

Li, J, Lewis, AC, Hopkins, JR, Andrews, SJ, Murrells, T, Passant, N, Richmond, B, Hou, S, Bloss, WJ, Harrison, RM & Shi, Z 2024, 'The impact of multi-decadal changes in VOC speciation on urban ozone chemistry: A case study in Birmingham, United Kingdom', Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, vol. 24, no. 10, pp. 6219-6231. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6219-2024

Cowell, N, Baldo, C, Chapman, L, Bloss, W & Zhong, J 2024, 'What can we learn from nested IoT low-cost sensor networks for air quality? A case study of PM_2.5 in Birmingham, UK', Meteorological Applications, vol. 31, no. 4, e2220. https://doi.org/10.1002/met.2220

Liu, B, Bryson, JR, Sevinc, D, Cole, M, Elliott, R, Bartington, S, Bloss, W & Shi, Z 2023, 'Assessing the Impacts of Birmingham’s Clean Air Zone on Air Quality: Estimates from a Machine Learning and Synthetic Control Approach', Environmental and Resource Economics, vol. 86, no. 1-2, pp. 203-231. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-023-00794-2, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-023-00794-2

Cho, C, Fuchs, H, Hofzumahaus, A, Holland, F, Bloss, WJ, Bohn, B, Dorn, HP, Glowania, M, Hohaus, T, Liu, L, Monks, PS, Niether, D, Rohrer, F, Sommariva, R, Tan, Z, Tillmann, R, Kiendler-Scharr, A, Wahner, A & Novelli, A 2023, 'Experimental chemical budgets of OH, HO₂, and RO₂ radicals in rural air in western Germany during the JULIAC campaign 2019', Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 2003-2033. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-2003-2023

Molden, N, Hemming, C, Leach, F, Levine, JG, Ropkins, K & Bloss, W 2023, 'Exposures to Particles and Volatile Organic Compounds across Multiple Transportation Modes', Sustainability (Switzerland), vol. 15, no. 5, 4005. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15054005

Andersen, ST, Carpenter, LJ, Reed, C, Lee, JD, Chance, R, Sherwen, T, Vaughan, AR, Stewart, J, Edwards, PM, Bloss, WJ, Sommariva, R, Crilley, LR, Nott, GJ, Neves, L, Read, K, Heard, DE, Seakins, PW, Whalley, LK, Boustead, GA, Fleming, LT, Stone, D & Fomba, KW 2023, 'Extensive field evidence for the release of HONO from the photolysis of nitrate aerosols', Science Advances, vol. 9, no. 3, eadd6266. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.add6266

Nelson, BS, Bryant, DJ, Alam, MS, Sommariva, R, Bloss, WJ, Newland, MJ, Drysdale, WS, Vaughan, AR, Acton, WJF, Hewitt, CN, Crilley, LR, Swift, SJ, Edwards, PM, Lewis, AC, Langford, B, Nemitz, E, Shivani, Gadi, R, Gurjar, BR, Heard, DE, Whalley, LK, Şahin, UA, Beddows, DCS, Hopkins, JR, Lee, JD, Rickard, AR & Hamilton, JF 2023, 'Extreme Concentrations of Nitric Oxide Control Daytime Oxidation and Quench Nocturnal Oxidation Chemistry in Delhi during Highly Polluted Episodes', Environmental Science and Technology Letters, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 520-527. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.estlett.3c00171

Sommariva, R, Alam, MS, Crilley, LR, Rooney, DJ, Bloss, WJ, Fomba, KW, Andersen, ST & Carpenter, LJ 2023, 'Factors Influencing the Formation of Nitrous Acid from Photolysis of Particulate Nitrate', The Journal of Physical Chemistry A, vol. 127, no. 44, pp. 9302-9310. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpca.3c03853

Dyson, JE, Whalley, LK, Slater, EJ, Woodward-Massey, R, Ye, C, Lee, JD, Squires, F, Hopkins, JR, Dunmore, RE, Shaw, M, Hamilton, JF, Lewis, AC, Worrall, SD, Bacak, A, Mehra, A, Bannan, TJ, Coe, H, Percival, CJ, Ouyang, B, Hewitt, CN, Jones, RL, Crilley, LR, Kramer, LJ, Acton, WJF, Bloss, WJ, Saksakulkrai, S, Xu, J, Shi, Z, Harrison, RM, Kotthaus, S, Grimmond, S, Sun, Y, Xu, W, Yue, S, Wei, L, Fu, P, Wang, X, Arnold, SR & Heard, DE 2023, 'Impact of HO₂ aerosol uptake on radical levels and O₃ production during summertime in Beijing', Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, vol. 23, no. 10, pp. 5679-5697. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-5679-2023

Zhong, J, Hodgson, JR, Bloss, W & Shi, Z 2023, 'Impacts of net zero policies on air quality in a metropolitan area of the United Kingdom: Towards world health organization air quality guidelines', Environmental Research, vol. 236, 116704. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2023.116704

Commissioned report

Greenham, S, Ferranti, E, Cork, N, Jones, S, Zhong, J, Haskins, B, Higgins, W, Grayson, N, Needle, S, Acton, J, MacKenzie, AR & Bloss, W 2024, Mapping Climate Risk and Vulnerability in the West Midlands: A guidance document produced by the WM-Air project. University of Birmingham. https://doi.org/10.25500/epapers.bham.00004371

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

Air Quality & Human Health

Sources of air pollutants: Traffic emissions

Air Pollution in Developing Megacities: Beijing, Delhi

Expertise

Air Quality & Human Health; Sources of air pollutants: Traffic emissions; Air Pollution in Developing Megacities: Beijing, Delhi