Allen Goldstein

Professor

Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Dept of Environmental Science, Policy & Management

Faculty URL

http://nature.berkeley.edu/ahg/

Research Group URL

http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ahg/

Contact

ahg@berkeley.edu

(510) 643-2451

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ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4014-4896

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Research Expertise and Interest

global change, air pollution, environmental science, biogeochemistry, atmospheric chemistry, indoor air quality

Research Description

Atmospheric chemistry, air pollution, biosphere-atmosphere exchange of radiatively and chemically active trace gases, and development and application of novel instrumentation to investigate the organic chemistry of earth’s atmosphere. Field campaigns, controlled laboratory experiments, and modeling activities covering indoor, outdoor, urban, rural, regional, intercontinental, and global scale studies of ozone, aerosols, and their gas phase precursors. Comprehensive research questions include: What controls atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, volatile organic compounds, photochemical oxidants, and aerosols? How do biological systems interact chemically and physically with earth's atmosphere?

In the News

A man carries a small child along the beach of Lake Tahoe. They are both wearing face masks, and the air is cloudy with wildfire smoke.

How much wildfire smoke is infiltrating our homes?

In a new study, scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, used data from 1,400 indoor air sensors and even more outdoor air sensors included on the crowdsourced PurpleAir network to find out how well residents of the San Francisco and Los Angeles metropolitan areas were able to protect the air inside their homes on days when the air outside was hazardous.

With drop in LA’s vehicular aerosol pollution, plants emerge as major source

California’s restrictions on vehicle emissions have been so effective that in at least one urban area, Los Angeles, the most concerning source of dangerous aerosol pollution may well be trees and other green plants, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, chemists.

Falling levels of air pollution drove decline in California’s tule fog

The Central Valley’s heavy wintertime tule fog – known for snarling traffic and closing schools — has been on the decline over the past 30 years, and falling levels of air pollution are the cause, says a new study by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley.

Side-by-side portraits of Allen Goldstein, Sung-Huo Kim and Katherin Yelick

Three faculty members elected AAAS fellows

Three senior UC Berkeley faculty members have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation’s largest scientific organization: Allen Goldstein, Sung-Hou Kim and Katherine Yelick.

Air pollution study clears the air on diesel versus gas emissions

UC Berkeley researchers released a new study that says diesel exhaust contributes 15 times more than gas emissions per liter of fuel burned.

There’s something in the California air

UC scientists built and worked in towers — some as tall as 1,500 feet — as part of the largest single atmospheric research effort in the state. The data they’ve collected will guide policymakers dealing with air pollution.

"A colored graph layered over a map of the United States.

Summer haze has a cooling effect in southeastern United States, says new study

Global warming may include some periods of local cooling, according to a new study by UC Berkeley researchers. Results from satellite and ground-based sensor data show that sweltering summers can, paradoxically, lead to the temporary formation of a cooling haze in the southeastern United States.

Featured in the Media

Please note: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of UC Berkeley.

April 22, 2019

Drop in air pollution led to decline in California's tule fog

San Francisco Chronicle

Drew Costley

The rise and fall of tule fog -- the thick, white, low-lying fog that can make winter driving in the Central Valley so harrowing has a lot to tell us about the effectiveness of anti-pollution laws, a surprising new Berkeley study reports. Examining meteorological and air pollution data dating back to 1930, the researchers found an unmistakable correlation between fog and particulate air pollution. Fog days increased by 85 percent between 1930 and 1970, then dropped by 76 percent between 1980 and 2016. During the upward trend, there was significant growth in farming and industry in the valley, while the drop-off correlated with the beginning of air pollution regulations. The findings help explain why that type of fog forms in the first place, with the droplets forming around pollution particles. "That increase and then decrease in fog frequency can't be explained by the rising temperatures due to climate change that we've seen in recent decades, and that's what really motivated our interest in looking at trends in air pollution," says graduate environmental science, policy and management student Ellyn Gray, the study's first author. Environmental science, policy, and management professor Allen Goldstein, the study's senior author, says: "When I was growing up in California in the 1970s and early 1980s, tule fog was a major story that we would hear about on the nightly news. ... These tule fogs were associated with very damaging multi-vehicle accidents on freeways in the Central Valley resulting from the low visibility. Today, those kind of fog events and associated major accidents are comparatively rare." For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News.

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