Prof Peter Brimblecombe

University of East Anglia, U.K. & City University of Hong Kong

Prof Peter Brimblecombe

University of East Anglia, U.K. & City University of Hong Kong

Biography

Prof. Peter Brimblecombe is a Chair Professor of Environmental Chemistry at the School of Energy and Environment, City University, Hong Kong. He was until recently a Professor in Atmospheric Chemistry at the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, U.K. and was appointed senior editor of Atmospheric Environment in 1990. He is also on the boards of several journals such as Heritage Science and Environmental Chemistry. He is active as a subject chair in Environmental Sciences for SCOPUS and currently the acting chair of the SCOPUS Contents Selection Advisory Board. He was born in Australia but did his PhD on the aqueous chemistry of sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere at a university in Auckland, New Zealand. He is convinced that environmental pollution is not merely a matter of environmental chemistry, instead the smells have to be smelt. He remains interested in atmospheric sulphur chemistry that formed the subject of his PhD in the early 1970s and have just completed a major review of the biogeochemical cycling of organosulphides. His current research interests are mainly on the long-term changes in urban air pollution and its effects on health and material damage, the statistical structure of air pollution monitoring data and its implications to policy, the impact of climate change on historic sites and their use, also the sea surface microlayer, binding to particulate material and the environmental chemistry of pharmaceuticals. Working with contemporary artists and writers give a new depth to his research when trying to understand the complexities of environmental problems. The title of his book “The Big Smoke” was meant to remind us of Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep, so he was pleased when this academic book was reviewed as “reading like a thriller”.