International Eurasian Academy of Sciences, IEAS

Academician

Hans-Christen Hansson

Profile:

Elected Academician of the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences on 4 December 2017, Professor Hans-Christen Hansson is one of Sweden’s leading atmospheric scientists and an internationally recognised authority on the life cycle of atmospheric aerosols and their interactions with climate, air quality, and human health. He earned his Ph.D. in Technical Physics from Lund University in 1983, with a dissertation on particle-induced X-ray emission analysis for outdoor environmental studies, and subsequently developed a distinguished career at the intersection of atmospheric chemistry, aerosol physics, and environmental policy. Now Professor Emeritus in the Department of Environmental Science and Analytical Chemistry at Stockholm University, he is also affiliated with the Bolin Centre for Climate Research. His scientific leadership has extended into national and international environmental governance: he has served as an advisor to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, a member of expert groups under the EMEP/CLRTAP framework, and a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences National Committee on Global Environmental Change. As Co-Chair of ILEAPS (Integrated Land Ecosystem–Atmosphere Processes Study), a core project of Future Earth, and through participation in more than fifteen major international research programmes, he has helped build a broad scientific network connecting urban air-quality research with regional and global climate assessment.

Back to list page →

His research is centred on the sources, transformation, and climatic effects of atmospheric particulate matter, with particular emphasis on black carbon, sulfate aerosols, and new-particle formation across urban, regional, and Arctic environments. By integrating pan-European observation systems, global climate modelling, and targeted field campaigns, he has demonstrated how the location and magnitude of regional black-carbon emissions determine their influence on surface temperature, how historical reductions in European air pollution have contributed to amplified Arctic warming, and how future aerosol-emission reductions may alter the balance between greenhouse-gas forcing and regional climate response. Author of more than 175 peer-reviewed publications, with an h-index of 49, over 9,100 citations, and five papers in Nature and Science, his work has contributed substantially to both fundamental aerosol science and international policy discussions on short-lived climate forcers. The five selected publications below—covering the surface-temperature response to regional black-carbon emissions (Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2020), local and remote temperature responses to regional SO₂ emissions (Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2019), future temperature and precipitation responses to reduced aerosol emissions and increased greenhouse-gas concentrations (Journal of Climate, 2017), the amplification of Arctic warming associated with European air-pollution reductions (Nature Geoscience, 2016), and new insights into particle formation from a pan-European observing system (Scientific Reports, 2018)—encapsulate a career dedicated to connecting process-level aerosol research with the broader challenges of climate mitigation, air-quality management, and sustainable environmental stewardship across the Eurasian region.