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Mr Ian Galbally, researching air pollution to improve our understanding.

Mr Ian Galbally: understanding our atmosphere

Overview

• Current activities
• Background
• Academic qualifications
• Achievements

Current activities

Mr Ian Galbally’s research on the organic composition and chemistry of the atmosphere is shedding light on the processes that form the air around us, with implications for climate change and human health.

Mr Galbally, of CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research Division, leads a group of researchers working to improve the understanding of the role of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from natural sources and human activities.

One aspect of this work, undertaken through the Light Metals National Research Flagship, involves VOC emissions associated with alumina refining, a major industry in western and northern Australia.

Mr Galbally is also researching:

• the science of greenhouse gas inventories
• Southern Hemisphere tropospheric ozone.

Background

Mr Galbally’s recent work with CSIRO has included:

• working with Mr Wayne Kirstine of Monash University, Australia, to show that the primary source of atmospheric methanol is biochemical processes associated with plant cell wall growth. Methanol is one of the major organic compounds in the atmosphere. They also discovered the emission of organic gases from grass and pasture plants and how they were affected by cutting.

• working with Professor Allen Goldstein of the University of California, Berkley, to determine that organic aerosols produced by chemical reactions in the atmosphere may be the dominant aerosols in the background atmosphere. This would mean these aerosols would play a significant role in climate processes. See: Known and Unexplored Organic Constituents in the Earth's Atmopshere.  

Mr Galbally’s research on the organic composition and chemistry of the atmosphere, grew out of studies of the photochemical production of ozone (in urban smog) from nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and sunlight.

His early work involved developing a simple on-road method of measuring motor vehicle emissions that has been used in Melbourne and Perth in Australia and in Hong Kong, China and Bangkok, Thailand.

Academic qualifications

Mr Galbally has been awarded:

• a Bachelor of Science from Monash University, Victoria, Australia, in 1966
• a Masters in Meteorology from the University of Melbourne, Victoria, 1972.

Achievements

Mr Galbally was recipient of:

• the Nuffield Foundation Travelling Fellowship, 1976-77
• the Werner Strauss Achievement Award, Clean Air Society of Australia and New Zealand, 2004.

He serves on international and national committees, including:

• the Editorial Board of the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry
• the Australian National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Committee
• the International Ozone Commission
• the International Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution, including serving as Secretary, 1990-94
• the Scientific Steering Committee of the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry (IGAC) Project
• the IPCC activity on Good Practice Guidance and Uncertainty Management in National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, serving as Co-Chair. 

  Mr Galbally's achievements include improving methods for measuring atmospheric pollution.

He is a Fellow of:

• the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering
• the Clean Air Society of Australia and New Zealand
• the Royal Australian Chemical Institute.

Mr Galbally has also:

• published more than 60 papers in international scientific journals
• published more than 80 papers in conference proceedings, reports and chapters in books
• published 35 consultancy reports
• edited two books and two major international reports.

For more on Mr Galbally’s publications see the CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research publications database.