I am very happy to announce that I will soon start a post-doc position at the Paul Scherrer Institute (Switzerland) within the project Reconstruction of pre-industrial to industrial changes of organic aerosols from glacier ice cores (PI: Margit Schwikowski). Specifically my role will be to develop a new and sensitive non-target screening method for the analysis of secondary organic aerosol tracers in ice cores. The method will be then applied to two ice cores (Belukha and Colle Gnifetti).

About the project

In this project, we aim to determine the composition and sources of organic aerosols in the pre-industrial, natural atmosphere and to investigate the influence of anthropogenic emissions on this composition. To this end, we will carry out chemical analyses of two different ice cores: one from a highly industrialised region in Europe and the other from an area with substantial biospheric emissions in Siberia.

We will analyse bulk parameters such as total organic carbon, both soluble and insoluble, and total elemental carbon, or soot. Radiocarbon analysis will be used to determine the biogenic and fossil contributions to these fractions. In addition, we will analyse molecular marker compounds that are characteristic of specific sources, such as vegetation fires and biogenic emissions of isoprene and terpenes. Furthermore, we will investigate the stability of these marker compounds and their potential contamination during sampling.

The datasets resulting from this project will improve our understanding of the composition and sources of organic aerosols during the pre-industrial and industrial periods, thereby allowing a more realistic representation of the climatic effects of aerosols in climate models.

Contributions

• Coordinated research activities across different laboratories, co-supervised a PhD student, aligning analytical workflows and project timelines.
• Supported budget management, including purchase of laboratory consumables and organization of business trips.
• Delivered project outputs within deadlines, including four peer-reviewed papers.
• Facilitated communication among project partners by organizing meetings and ensuring effective information flow.
• Outstanding Poster Award at IPICS22 (Crans-Montana).

Partners

The project was funded by the Norwegian Research Council (NOK 100.000).

Paul Scherrer Institute: principal investigator (Francois Burgay), analyses
Goethe Universitat Frankfurt: in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results
University of Mainz: in-depth/constructive exchanges on approaches, methods or results

Publications

1. Huber C, Burgay F, et al., Influence of meltwater percolation on preservation of organic aerosol tracers in glacier archives. (2025) Environmental Science and Technology. *Authors contributed equally
2. Burgay F, et al., Non-target screening of a Siberian ice core reveals changes in the pre-industrial to industrial organic aerosol composition (2025). Science Advances.
3. Schäfer J, et al., Method development and application for the analysis of chiral organic marker species in ice-cores. (2025) Atmospheric Measurements and Techniques.
4. Burgay F, Exploring new molecular universes: how non-target screening analysis can open new perspectives in ice core science. (2023) PAGES Magazine. Invited manuscript
5. Burgay F, et al., Hybrid Targeted/Untargeted Screening Method for the Determination of Wildfire and Water-Soluble Organic Tracers in Ice Cores and Snow. (2023) Analytical chemistry.