Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

The interaction between atmospheric chemistry and climate is an emerging topic for which the net impact on the Earth’s system is still poorly quantified and understood.

It is well demonstrated that the changes in atmospheric chemistry strongly affect the climate. They are mainly due to anthropogenic activities with the emission of the greenhouse gases, pollutants, aerosols and ozone depleting substances. In addition, climate studies must take into account the various couplings between the radiative, dynamic and chemical processes occurring in both the troposphere and the stratosphere. Natural processes should also be studied and quantified in that context.

The understanding of climate-chemistry couplings requires a huge effort and a new approach to integrate the ground-based and the satellite observations. This new concept has been developed in the frame of international agencies and associations like the EC report GMES-GATO (A European Strategy for Global Atmospheric Observations), the Integrated Global Observing Strategy (IGOS) and the Integrated Global Atmospheric Chemistry Observations (IGACO) initiative serving the GEOSS aims for atmospheric composition.

The requirement for an integrated global observation system for climate-chemistry interactions will be described and the need for long-term atmospheric monitoring justified.

The existing atmospheric observation systems based on remote sensing techniques will be reviewed, mainly the ground-based networks such as the WMO Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) and the Network for the Detection of Stratospheric Change (NDSC). Data validation of some recent satellite sensors such as GOME, by means of infrared and UV-visible absorption spectroscopy will be briefly presented.