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The Integrated Carbon Observation System in Europe

Heiskanen, Jouni ; Brummer, Christian ; Buchmann, Nina LU ; Calfapietra, Carlo ; Chen, Huilin ; Gielen, Bert ; Gkritzalis, Thanos ; Hammer, Samuel ; Hartman, Susan and Herbst, Mathias , et al. (2022) In Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 103(3). p.855-872
Abstract

Since 1750, land-use change and fossil fuel combustion has led to a 46% increase in the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, causing global warming with substantial societal consequences. The Paris Agreement aims to limit global temperature increases to well below 2C above preindustrial levels. Increasing levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), in the atmosphere are the primary cause of climate change. Approximately half of the carbon emissions to the atmosphere are sequestered by ocean and land sinks, leading to ocean acidification but also slowing the rate of global warming. However, there are significant uncertainties in the future global warming scenarios due to... (More)

Since 1750, land-use change and fossil fuel combustion has led to a 46% increase in the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, causing global warming with substantial societal consequences. The Paris Agreement aims to limit global temperature increases to well below 2C above preindustrial levels. Increasing levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), in the atmosphere are the primary cause of climate change. Approximately half of the carbon emissions to the atmosphere are sequestered by ocean and land sinks, leading to ocean acidification but also slowing the rate of global warming. However, there are significant uncertainties in the future global warming scenarios due to uncertainties in the size, nature, and stability of these sinks. Quantifying and monitoring the size and timing of natural sinks and the impact of climate change on ecosystems are important information to guide policy-makers' decisions and strategies on reductions in emissions. Continuous, long-term observations are required to quantify GHG emissions, sinks, and their impacts on Earth systems. The Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) was designed as the European in situ observation and information system to support science and society in their efforts to mitigate climate change. It provides standardized and open data currently from over 140 measurement stations across 12 European countries. The stations observe GHG concentrations in the atmosphere and carbon and GHG fluxes between the atmosphere, land surface, and the oceans. This article describes how ICOS fulfills its mission to harmonize these observations, ensure the related long-term financial commitments, provide easy access to well-documented and reproducible high-quality data and related protocols and tools for scientific studies, and deliver information and GHG-related products to stakeholders in society and policy.

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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Atmosphere, Climate change, Europe, Greenhouse gases, Measurements, Ocean
in
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
volume
103
issue
3
pages
855 - 872
publisher
American Meteorological Society
external identifiers
  • scopus:85119510369
ISSN
0003-0007
DOI
10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0364.1
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Funding Information: The financial challenges were tackled by acquiring commitments from various countries interested to build a national network of ICOS stations or propose a central facility. The host countries provide the majority of the financial support by direct governmental grants (ICOS Ecosystem Thematic Centre is hosted by Italy, France, and Belgium; Atmosphere Thematic Centre by France and Finland; Ocean Thematic Centre by Norway and the United Kingdom; the Central Analytical Laboratories by Germany; and the Carbon Portal by Sweden and the Netherlands). The stations are maintained by individual countries, and each country also contributes to the general costs for the upkeep of the RI. The principles for sharing the financial responsibilities were written in the ICOS financial rules. Funding Information: Another obstacle was how to draw conclusions from various pieces of data and information. This called for a framework how to systematically provide scientific knowledge in global scale, giving birth to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established in the end of 1980s. Eyes turned next to land, where various methods had been developed to understand highly diverse and complex terrestrial ecosystems. This posed challenges to compare the results, and the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) was established to harmonize terrestrial observations and to define a set of Essential Climate Variables (GCOS 1994, 2016; WMO 2009). Quantifying relatively small long-term trends in CO2 and other GHG concentration and fluxes against a background of much larger short-term variations caused by the “natural” carbon cycle requires highly precise and accurate observations. To decrease uncertainties by improving the quality of observations, and to draw general conclusions, research-and investigator-based European ecosystem networks, with foci on CO2, energy, and water exchange, emerged in the 1990s with the support of the European Commission funding programs (EuroFlux, CarboEurope IP, and GHG Europe). During 1998–2002, the EuroFlux network covered 30 stations mainly in forest ecosystems across Europe (Janssens et al. 2003), which later developed into the network of ecosystem stations within ICOS. Funding Information: ICOS is collaborating with complementary networks in Europe and in other continents toward more harmonized standardization of observations and data processing, common data policies, and common data citation system. Examples are the Long-Term Ecosystem Research (eLTER), the European Research Infrastructure for the Observation of Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases (ACTRIS), the AmeriFlux Management Project and the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) in the United States and the U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program, the Chinese Ecosystem Research Network, the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) in Australia, and the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Japan. ICOS also supports and develops the global data networks, such as WMO Global Atmosphere Watch and the World Data Centre of Greenhouse Gases for atmospheric observations, FLUXNET for ecosystem GHG fluxes, SOCAT, and Global Ocean Data Analysis Project (GLODAP). ICOS contributes to the development of harmonized observations in Africa via design study and capacity building (Lopéz-Ballesteros et al. 2018). Funding Information: Acknowledgments. Academy of Finland (Grants 281255, 319871, 320124, 329221); the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education; Danish Ministry of Energy, Utilities and Climate; EU (Grants 211574, 730944); Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communication; Flemish Fund for Scientific Research (FWO Grant G0H3317); French Ministry of Research (MESRI); German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF); German Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI); the Italian Ministry of Universities and Research; the Netherlands Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research; the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic; the Natural Environment Research Council of the United Kingdom; Norwegian Environmental Agency, Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment, Research Council of Norway; Swedish Research Council (Grant 2019-00205); Swiss National Science Foundation (ICOS-CH Phase 1 and Phase 2, 20FI21_148992 and 20FI20_173691); and the ETH domain. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 American Meteorological Society. All rights reserved.
id
2c8198b5-15ed-4bfe-ac5f-971c2b999194
date added to LUP
2022-04-19 09:25:42
date last changed
2022-04-27 04:54:11
@article{2c8198b5-15ed-4bfe-ac5f-971c2b999194,
  abstract     = {{<p>Since 1750, land-use change and fossil fuel combustion has led to a 46% increase in the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, causing global warming with substantial societal consequences. The Paris Agreement aims to limit global temperature increases to well below 2C above preindustrial levels. Increasing levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), in the atmosphere are the primary cause of climate change. Approximately half of the carbon emissions to the atmosphere are sequestered by ocean and land sinks, leading to ocean acidification but also slowing the rate of global warming. However, there are significant uncertainties in the future global warming scenarios due to uncertainties in the size, nature, and stability of these sinks. Quantifying and monitoring the size and timing of natural sinks and the impact of climate change on ecosystems are important information to guide policy-makers' decisions and strategies on reductions in emissions. Continuous, long-term observations are required to quantify GHG emissions, sinks, and their impacts on Earth systems. The Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) was designed as the European in situ observation and information system to support science and society in their efforts to mitigate climate change. It provides standardized and open data currently from over 140 measurement stations across 12 European countries. The stations observe GHG concentrations in the atmosphere and carbon and GHG fluxes between the atmosphere, land surface, and the oceans. This article describes how ICOS fulfills its mission to harmonize these observations, ensure the related long-term financial commitments, provide easy access to well-documented and reproducible high-quality data and related protocols and tools for scientific studies, and deliver information and GHG-related products to stakeholders in society and policy.</p>}},
  author       = {{Heiskanen, Jouni and Brummer, Christian and Buchmann, Nina and Calfapietra, Carlo and Chen, Huilin and Gielen, Bert and Gkritzalis, Thanos and Hammer, Samuel and Hartman, Susan and Herbst, Mathias and Janssens, Ivan A. and Jordan, Armin and Juurola, Eija and Karstens, Ute and Kasurinen, Ville and Kruijt, Bart and Lankreijer, Harry and Levin, Ingeborg and Linderson, Maj Lena and Loustau, Denis and Merbold, Lutz and Myhre, Cathrine Lund and Papale, Dario and Pavelka, Marian and Pilegaard, Kim and Ramonet, Michel and Rebmann, Corinna and Rinne, Janne and Rivier, Léonard and Saltikoff, Elena and Sanders, Richard and Steinbacher, Martin and Steinhoff, Tobias and Watson, Andrew and Vermeulen, Alex T. and Vesala, Timo and Vítkova, Gabriela and Kutsch, Werner}},
  issn         = {{0003-0007}},
  keywords     = {{Atmosphere; Climate change; Europe; Greenhouse gases; Measurements; Ocean}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{3}},
  pages        = {{855--872}},
  publisher    = {{American Meteorological Society}},
  series       = {{Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society}},
  title        = {{The Integrated Carbon Observation System in Europe}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0364.1}},
  doi          = {{10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0364.1}},
  volume       = {{103}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}