In this work, we investigated the role of emission reductions on aerosol acidity and particulate nitrate. We found that models exhibit positive biases in pH predictions, attributed to very high levels of crustal elements (Mg, Ca, K) in model simulations, which in turn led to an increasing aerosol pH trend over the past decade and allowed nitrate to become an important component of aerosol, which is inconsistent with the measurements, highlighting the importance of accurate pH prediction.