2026-08-12 –, Room 3
ATLAS is a global atmospheric chemistry and transport model with a focus on stratospheric chemistry, and in particular anthropogenic ozone depletion (the "ozone hole"). It was originally written in Matlab (starting in 2009) and has been rewritten in Julia in the last 5 years, resulting in a 10x speedup. We give an overview of the implementation and of the scientific results published in the last 15 years.
ATLAS is a global atmospheric chemistry and transport model (commonly known as CTM). In contrast to many other models, it is not based on a Eulerian approach ("grid boxes"), but on a Lagrangian approach ("air parcel trajectories"). It has a focus on stratospheric chemistry (in particular anthropogenic ozone depletion), but also has seen some extensions in the last years. These include, e.g., tropospheric convection on individual trajectories and the chemistry of sulfur dioxide.
We give a short overview over the implementation of the model and the algorithms. ATLAS is based on a modular approach, and several of the components, like the air parcel trajectory model or the chemistry "box" model can also be used as stand-alone components.
In contrast to a climate model, ATLAS does not have a "dynamical core". Temperatures and winds are obtained from external meteorological data (e.g. ECMWF ERA5). Transport and mixing (diffusion) are simulated. In contrast to an Eulerian model, atmospheric diffusion can be tuned to observations in the real atmosphere.
ATLAS has been used in numerous scientific studies and publications in the last 15 years, and we will show some examples of the application of the model.
I am a senior scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Potsdam and in Bremerhaven, Germany. I have obtained my PhD in 2003 at the University of Bremen, Germany, and have been working at the Alfred Wegener Institute in the area of atmospheric science with a focus on the stratosphere since then. Since 2009, I am the developer, maintainer and scientist behind the ATLAS chemistry and transport model, and I am focussing my research on the model.