The Earth System and climate research are the main focus of the department in the investigation of biological and organic aerosols, aerosol-cloud interactions and atmosphere-surface exchange processes. The food and health sciences area studies how air pollutants cause changes in protein macromolecules and how this affects allergic reactions and diseases. The sequence of multiphase processes at the molecular level and its impact on the macroscopic and global scale is also investigated. The challenge lies in bridging different spatial and temporal scales: from tenths of nanometers to thousands of kilometers and from nanoseconds to years.
Pöschl is also the founder and chief executive editor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP), an open access peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the European Geosciences Union (EGU). Founded in 2001 as the world's first scientific journal with public peer review and discussion, it has become one of the major environmental and earth sciences journal. Pöschl is also a council member of the EGU (2003-2007), and he has been the Chair of the EGU Publication Committee (2009-2014). He is an initiator and co-chair of the international open access initiative OA2020.