Welcome to the Climate Change Unit!
The mission of the Climate Change Unit
is to provide scientific support for the development and
monitoring of European policies in the area of regional and
global air pollution and climate change. The Unit directly
supports the European Union in fulfilling its duties as Party
of international environmental conventions in the field of
climate change, such as the Kyoto Protocol.
The Unit is leading the efforts of IES
for assessing the climate effects of changes in the
composition of the atmosphere and changes in land use. The
Unit is committed to develop a systemic view on the
environment, climate and human intervention. With its
interdisciplinary team of physicists, chemists,
meteorologists, ecologists and economists, the Unit studies
the interactions between the atmosphere and the biosphere, and
between the atmosphere and the economic/energy system, as far
as they are relevant for climate change.
This includes data gathering and
modelling activities such as the development and maintenance
of European and global data systems for greenhouse gases and
other air pollution (CARBODATA, EDGAR, WMO/GAW/World Data
Centre for Aerosols), and scenario modeling with a coupled
regional and global chemistry/aerosol transport model
(TM5).
To carry out its experimental tasks,
the Climate Change Unit is equipped with two mobile
laboratories for a complete physical, chemical and optical
characterization of particulate matter in the atmosphere. The
Unit runs an EMEP super-station at the Ispra site for the
monitoring of air pollution and explores new monitoring
techniques such as the laser-ionization time-of-flight mass
spectrometer for on-line single particle analysis (SPASS). In
the field of greenhouse gas emissions, the Climate Change Unit
has laboratory and field instrumentation to measure fluxes of
greenhouse and other gases between the biosphere and the
atmosphere. The Unit is running experimental greenhouse gas
flux towers in Parco Ticino (near Pavia) and Parco San Rossore
(near Pisa).
The work of the Unit is carried out in three Research
Actions:
Action 24001 -
Global Air Pollution and Climate Change contributes to
scientific research on the linkages between air pollution and
climate change to make policy makers aware of potential
synergies and trade-offs that are imposed by the way the
atmosphere and the climate system work.
Action
24002 - Greenhouse Gases in Agriculture, Forestry and
other Land Uses provides Quality Assurance and
Quality Control (QA/QC) for greenhouse gas emissions and sinks
as part of the European Union Greenhouse Gas Emission
Inventory System. Issues are tackled according to their degree
of uncertainty, lack of consensus, or relevance for achieving
the EU Kyoto target.
Action 24003 -
Integrated Climate Policy Assessment: Emissions and
Environmental impacts integrates global emission
scenarios of greenhouse gases and air pollutants through
global atmospheric chemistry modeling, regional climate
modeling to assess physical impacts and benefits of climate
policy on the European and global climate and
environment.
More information can be found on the Climate Change Unit
web pages.
Contact info:
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