Apostolos Voulgarakis
Associate Professor, Climate Change and Atmospheric Environment

AXA Chair in Wildfires and Climate
Atmospheric Environment and Climate Change Laboratory
Division I: Environmental & Energy Management, Sustainable Development and Climate Change

Extended CV (pdf)

Contact

Education

  • 2008: PhD in Atmospheric Science, Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge.
  • 2004: MSc, School in Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete.
  • 2002: BSc in Physics, School of Natural Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Research Interests

  • Climate change and the atmospheric environment
  • Temperature and rainfall effects of air pollution
  • Fire-climate interactions
  • Earth observation & Earth system modelling
  • Climate, air pollution, and health co-benefits
  • Global & regional environmental policy

Participation in Research Programs and Projects

  • “AXA Chair in Wildfires and Climate”, Awardee/Coordinator, Funding: AXA Research Fund, 2022-2026.
  • “Fire-emitted Pollution and Climate change: linkages in the past, present, and future (FirePC)”, Coordinator, Funding: Hellenic Foundation for Research and innovation (HFRI), 2022-2024.
  • “Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society”, Founder/Founding Director and current Associate Director, Funding: Leverhulme Trust (UK), 2019-2029.
  • “National Research Network for Climate Change and its Impacts", participant from TUC, Funding: General Secretariat of Research and Technology, Greece, 2020-2022.

Distinctions and Awards

  • Analysis Lead for the effects of regional aerosols on the global hydrological cycle in the international Precipitation Drivers and Response Modelling Intercomparison Project (PDRMIP), (2014-present).
  • Awarded as Best Tutor at Imperial College London (2016, and also nominated for other teaching awards in all subsequent years till 2019).
  • Invited to be the Lead Climate Science Adviser for the first Climate Change Risk Assessment of Cyprus, commissioned by the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Cyprus (2015-16).
  • Contributing Author to the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), Chapters 6 & 11 (2013), resulting from the work conducted while based at the NASA GISS institute.
  • Best Young Researcher Award, from the Hellenic Meteorological Society (2008).

Recent Publications

  • Thomas, C., Voulgarakis, A., Lim, G., Haigh, J., and Nowack, P. (2021), An unsupervised learning approach to identifying blocking events: the case of European summer, Weather Clim. Dynam., 2(3), 581-608, https://doi.org/10.5194/wcd-2-581-2021.
  • Mansfield, L., Nowack, P., Kasoar, M., Everitt, R. G., W. J. Collings, and A. Voulgarakis (2020), Predicting global patterns of long-term climate change from short-term simulations using machine learning, npj Clim. &. Atmospheric Sci. (Nature journal), 3, 44, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-020-00148-5.
  • Kuhn-Régnier, A., Voulgarakis, A., Nowack, P., Forkel, M., Prentice, I. C., and Harrison, S. P. (2020), Quantifying the Importance of Antecedent Fuel-Related Vegetation Properties for Burnt Area using Random Forests, Biogeosciences, 18(12), 3861-3879, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2020-409.
  • Teixeira, J. C., Folberth, G., O'Connor, F. M., Unger, N., and Voulgarakis, A. (2020), Coupling interactive fire with atmospheric composition and climate in the UK Earth System Model,14, 6515-6539, Geosci. Model Dev., https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-14-6515-2021.
  • Tang, T., Shindell, D., Zhang, Y., Voulgarakis, A., Lamarque, J.-F., Myhre, G., Faluvegi, G., Samset, B., Andrews, T., Olivié, D., Takemura, T., and Lee, X., Distinct surface response to black carbon aerosols (2021), Distinct surface response to black carbon aerosols, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 13797–13809, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-13797-2021.
  • Hodnebrog, Ø. et al. (incl. Voulgarakis, A.) (2020), The effect of rapid adjustments to halocarbons and N2O on radiative forcing. npj Clim Atmos Sci 3, 43, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-020-00150-x.
  • Qu, Y., Voulgarakis, A., Wang, T., Kasoar, M., Wells, C., Yuan, C., Varma, S., and Mansfield, L. (2021), A study of the effect of aerosols on surface ozone through meteorology feedbacks over China, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 5705–5718, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-5705-2021.
  • Hantson, S., et al. (incl. Voulgarakis, A.)  (2020), Quantitative assessment of fire and vegetation properties in simulations with fire-enabled vegetation models from the Fire Model Intercomparison Project, Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 3299–3318, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-3299-2020.
  • Tang, T., Shindell, D., Zhang, Y., Voulgarakis, A., Lamarque, J.-F., Myhre, G., Stjern, C. W., Faluvegi, G., and Samset, B. H. (2020), Response of surface shortwave cloud radiative effect to greenhouse gases and aerosols and its impact on summer maximum temperature, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 8251–8266, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-8251-2020.
  • Wild, O., Voulgarakis, A., O'Connor, F., Lamarque, J.-F., Ryan, E. M., and Lee, L. (2020), Global sensitivity analysis of chemistry–climate model budgets of tropospheric ozone and OH: exploring model diversity, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 4047–4058, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-4047-2020.

Postgraduate Courses