A University of Iowa chemical and biochemical engineering professor is a key investigator on a $4.9 million grant to help scientists better model and predict air quality and chemical behavior in the atmosphere.

Gregory Carmichael, UI’s Karl Kammermeyer Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and co-director of the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, will lend his expertise in chemical weather forecasting to the project. UI is expected to receive $750,000 for its role.

“Modernizing our tools for understanding air quality and weather patterns has never been more critical, so we can make informed decisions that protect public health while ensuring the sustainable management of our agricultural and energy resources,” Carmichael said.

The five-year project, funded by the National Science Foundation, aims to develop a new modeling system called CheMPAS-A. This system will replace an older model that served a broad community from research to operations, spanning academic, private, and military institutions. That model is no longer maintained and will integrate advanced chemistry features into a modern global weather model.

The research will help scientists better understand how pollutants and chemicals move and change in the air—from local neighborhoods to the entire globe. This is crucial for improving forecasts of weather and air quality, protecting public health, supporting agriculture and energy systems, and guiding environmental policy.

A key innovation of the project is a flexible, user-friendly coding system that allows researchers to quickly test and improve how atmospheric chemistry is represented in models. This will make scientific collaboration faster and more effective.

By using modern software practices and training the next generation of scientists, the project aims to turn complex research into practical tools for society. The work is a collaboration between the University of Iowa, University of Arizona (lead), University at Albany, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.