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15th WMO/IAEA Meeting of Experts on Carbon Dioxide,
Other Greenhouse Gases, and Related Tracer
Measurement Techniques

September 7-10, 2009

Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC)

Jena (Germany)

BGC-Systems
Introduction     Photo Gallery     General Information     Program and PDFs of Contributions     Contact

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Experts of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Measurements in the atmosphere have met regularly for 34 years now, with the initial meeting organized by Dave Keeling at La Jolla, California. The major topics of these meetings include promotion of new techniques, issues of standardization and quality assurance and broadening of scope to other climate-relevant trace gases and proxies. The meetings provide an international forum for discussing recent developments, improvements, as well as problems and challenges in the field of precise measurements of atmospheric trace gases.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has provided the umbrella to all CO2 Experts meetings, including the last one held in Helsinki at the FMI premises in September 2007 (http://www.fmi.fi/research_climate/climate_6.html). Because of the increased use of carbon isotopes in studying the carbon cycle, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna joined WMO as a co-organizer 1997.

The WMO Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) program, through its Scientific Advisory Group for Greenhouse Gases (SAG-GHG), member operated calibration and quality assurance facilities, and the World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases, helps to coordinate the global network, promotes data quality objectives, and provides data management and links to users. 

Measurements of mixing ratios and isotopic composition of CO2, CH4 and other greenhouse gases are now made at over 100 globally distributed ground-based sampling locations as well as on ships and aircraft. About 20 laboratories from a dozen counties are measuring and reporting CO2 data. They are assisted by personnel at GAW stations in WMO member countries around the world. Based on research results from this network the WMO Greenhouse Gas Bulletin was created (http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/arep/gaw/ghg/GHGbulletin.html).

Observations are essential in understanding global and regional carbon budgets and cycles. Inverse modeling techniques use carbon cycle models and the observed spatial/temporal distribution of greenhouse gases to derive estimates of the magnitude and distribution of the sources and sinks of these gases. Although model transport contributes the largest uncertainties to estimates of sources and sinks, there are still uncertainties associated with inconsistencies in global observations. Since the 12th meeting in Toronto, data quality objectives are established for CO2, CH4, N2O and the CO2 isotopes and subject to review on every meeting (the recommendations from the 2007 meeting in Helsinki can be downloaded from http://www.fmi.fi/kuvat/14thExpertsRecom.pdf).

From September 07 to 10 2009, the15th CO2 experts meeting in this series has been hosted by the Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany. The 15th meeting has reviewed current WMO data quality objectives, covering such topics as CO2, stable isotopes, radiocarbon in CO2, O2/N2, CH4, N2O, CO, and H2 measurements, calibration, quality control, data management, and archiving. New and emerging technology have also been discussed including measurements from satellites and flux tower studies.


The Meeting Report will be published by WMO in the GAW series (http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/arep/gaw/gaw-reports.html ).



Previous meetings:
(Caution, long files)

13th -- ftp://ftp.wmo.int/Documents/PublicWeb/arep/gaw/gaw168.pdf
14th -- http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/arep/gaw/documents/GAW_186_TD_No_1487_web.pdf

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