Ongoing projects
Tamanrasset station (Algeria)
El Cairo Station (Egypt)
Meteorological Authority (EMA; Egypt), the Office National de la Météorologie (ONM; Algeria), the Direction de la Météorologie Nationale (DMN; Morocco), and the Institut National de la Meteorologie (INM; Tunisia)
Project title: Core requirements to support forecast of meningitis (MACC Project)
Description: Monitoring Atmospheric Composition & Climate (MACC) is the current pre-operational atmospheric service of the European GMES programme. MACC is a Collaborative Project (2009-2011) funded by the European Union under the 7th Framework Programme.
It is coordinated by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and operated by a 45-member consortium. MACC provides data records on atmospheric composition for recent years, data for monitoring present conditions and forecasts of the distribution of key constituents for a few days ahead. MACC combines state-of-the-art atmospheric modelling with Earth observation data to provide information services covering European Air Quality, Global Atmospheric Composition, Climate, and UV and Solar Energy. O-INTERFACE 3 (O-INT_3) is a service chain analysis in support to health community. It is one of the components of the OUTREACH cluster, which aims to maximize the benefit that MACC brings to the users of the atmospheric services offered by GMES. The Working Package O-INT_3.1 “Core requirements to support forecast of meningitis”, leaded by the Meteorological State Agency of Spain (AEMET), in joint cooperation with the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) within the Sand and Dust Storm (SDS) Warning Advisory and Assessment System (WAS) Regional Center for Northern Africa, Middle East and Europe, has as a first goal the implementation of an operational service for dust forecast - initially using the model BSC-DREAM8b - and near real time monitoring for the Sahel region inside MACC. Large dust plumes from the southern Sahara and the Bodele depression are thought be linked to meningitis outbreaks in the Sahel region (the “Meningitis Belt”). This belt is an endemic area for meningococcal meningitis (MCM). Previous studies have analyzed the relationship between meningitis and environmental parameters obtained by satellite-based sensors and ground meteorological stations. The combined information from ground and satellite based observations and meteorological/dust models will improve the studies conducted to investigate the link between meningitis and environmental factors over the Sahara and the Sahel regions.
http://www.gmes-atmosphere.eu/
http://www.gmes-atmosphere.eu/about/project_structure/outreach/o-int/
Financial entity: EC FPVII (ECMWF)
Funding budget: 50,000 €
Contract number: 218793
Length: from 01/06/2009 to 31/12/2011
Number of involved institutions: AEMET (The Izaña Atmospheric Research Center), the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS; Unfunded contribution to MACC)
Principal Investigator: Dr. Emilio Cuevas
Description: Ground-based instruments (Dobson and Brewer) as well as satellite ozone retrievals present four major know issues not fully understood: (1) seasonal differences between Dobson and Brewer, (2) straylight in single monocromators brewers, (3) algorithm differences and (4) ozone cross section effects. Dobson and Brewer comparisons show a seasonal pattern with largest differences in late autumn and winter (high solar zenith angle). This difference is partially explained by the different sensitivity of the Brewer and Dobson algorithms to the temperature of the ozone layer. During the SAUNA campaigns the single Brewers exhibited striking column dependences at high SZA. This behavior is due in part to instrumental stray-light and calibration issues of the single monochromator instruments. As opposed to satellites which rely on ozone profile and temperature climatologies in their inversions, ground-based instrumentations use a fixed effective ozone altitude and temperature in their algorithms. This difference in implementation leads to differences between ground-based and satellites and also between ground-based time-series themselves. A usefull fix for the satellite community would be to assess the implementation of latitude dependent climatology in the ground-based algorithms. Another issue on the satellite validation is the use of different ozone cross sections in the retrieval algorithms. This problem is outside the scope of the project, but the implementation of changes on the ground-based algorithms mentioned above requires a reevaluation of the calibration of the instrument. This means that the calibration history has to be carefully documented and raw data files must be stored for further reanalysis. The issues described above can readily be improved by performing calibration from a well characterized double monochromator instrument after operating the instruments side-by-side for periods of 2 weeks over a large range of solar zenith angles and varying ozone column amounts. A number of field campaigns will be conducted in the 2008-2012 time frame where Dobson and Brewer spectrophotometers will be intercompared and calibrated using absolute calibration after the Langley Method to establish standards, while the transfer of the resulting calibration level into the network is done by regular intercomparisons. Through participation of FMI to some of the intercalibration campaigns, the calibration level will be delivered to the key Nordic Brewers. As regards the participation of the Regional Brewer Calibration Center for Europe (RBCC-E), selected Brewer network instruments from Europe and North-Africa will be operated in parallel to the European reference instrument. Such campaigns are planned in Spain, Switzerland and Algeria/Egypt. The European standard Dobson will be operated at Izana along the European standard double Brewer.
www.iberonesia.net
Financial entity: ESA (through the Finnish Meteorological Institute)
Length: from 01/01/2010 to 31/03/2012
Project title: Study of isotopic composition of the precipitation and water vapor in the atmosphere over the Canary Islands for the characterization of local, regional and global processes involved in climate change over the subtropical Region (ECOMISAAC)
Description: The main goal of this project is the isotopic characterization of water from snow, rain and fog sampled at different altitudes of the Tenerife Island.
Financial entity: Agencia Canaria de Investigación, Innovación y Sociedad de la Información (Gobierno de Canarias)
Funding budget: 25,953 €
Contract number: SolSubC200801000260
Length: from 22/06/2009 to 22/06/2012
Number of involved institutions: La Laguna University (ULL), and AEMET (The Izaña Atmospheric Research Center).
Principal Investigator: Dr. Juan Carlos Guerra (University of La laguna)
Project title: Formation and transport of atmospheric aerosol in a regional scale in Western Andalusia, Spain, (AER-REG)
Description: The objective of this project is to investigate the mechanisms by which secondary atmospheric aerosols are formed and transported in the regional scale in Huelva (a province of Spain located in Andalusia region). Previous studies in this region showed that some secondary aerosols, such as sulphate, ammonium and nitrate, and organic matter, exhibits a high background in the region, with similar levels in the rural, industrial and urban areas. These high background concentrations are related to the high degree of industrialization in the region and to some favourable conditions related to regional meteorology. The specific objective of the project is to investigate the chemical pathways by which the secondary aerosol are formed and the regional meteorological processes that result in the regional dispersion and transport of those secondary aerosols and their precursors. The project is developed in tow steps. In the first one, a set of field measurements campaigns are performed to collect experimental data of aerosol composition during meteorological scenarios typical of the summer and winter seasons. In the second step, the formation and regional transport of aerosols is modelled at a high resolution by using CAMx.
Financial entity: Departament of Enterprise and Science, Goberment of Andalusia.
Funding budget: 155,000€
Contract number: P07-RNM-3125.
Length: 01-Jan-2008 to 31-Jan-2012).
Number of involved institutions: University of Huelva, CSIC (Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research), NOAA (Air Resources Laboratories), CEAM (Centro de Estudios Ambientales del Mediterraneo), AEMET (The Izaña Atmospheric Research Center).
Principal investigator: Dr. Sergio Rodríguez
Project title: Equipo de Investigación Multidisciplinar sobre Cambios Climáticos Graduales y Abruptos y sus Efectos Medioambientales (GRACCIE)
Description: This is a large multidisciplinary research project whose objective is to promote the collaboration between research groups expertise in different areas related with the objective of understanding, analyzing and predicting climate change and its impacts, with emphasis on abrupt changes and extreme events. Interactions between climate change, ecosystems and greenhouse gases budgets and changes in extreme hydrological events in Europe, advanced climate and earth system modelling, climate impacts and public perception, links between climate and global water security will be addressed in line with results of the 4th IPCC assessment report. Adaptation to climate change and its impacts in Europe and Africa, and actions supporting the 'Bali Roadmap' and related post-2012 climate policy initiatives will receive particular attention. Other topics such us health effects of climate change, climate / meteorological related hazards, are also investigated.
Financial entity: Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain. CONSOLIDER call.
Funding budget: 5,413,000 €
Contract number: CSD2007-00067. CONSOLIDER.
Length: 01-Jan-2008 to 31-Dec-2012.
Number of involved institutions: CSIC Instituto de Investigaciones Químicas y Ambientales de Barcelona “Josep Pascual Vila”. Resto de centros que participan: Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (CSIC), Centre d´Estudis Avançats de Blanes (CSIC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas, Fundació Bosch i Gimpera (Universidad de Barcelona), Fundación Centro de Estudios Ambientales del Mediterráneo, Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra (CSIC- UGR), Instituto de Ciencias de la Tierra 'Jaume Almera' (CSIC), Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC), AEMET - Izaña Atmospheric Research Centre, Parc Científic de Barcelona, The JRC Institute for Environment and Sustainability (Italia), Unite Mixte de Recherche CEA-CNRS, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Universidad de A Coruña, Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, Universidad de Alicante, Universidad de Barcelona, Universidad de Berna, Universidad de Cádiz, Universidad de Cantabria, Universidad de Granada, Universidad de Huelva, Universidad de Oviedo, Universidad de Salamanca, Universidad de Vigo, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña.
Principal investigator: Dr.J. O. Grimalt
Project title: Spanish network for environmental measurements with DMA (REDMAAS)
Description: The purpose of this project is to prompt the collaboration and interrelationship between the few Spanish groups that works with Differential Mobility Analyzers (DMA) for performing measurements of size distributions of fine and ultrafine particles within the context of air quality and atmospheric science studies. Some of the tasks and questions that are covered by the project are: annual instruments inter-comparisons, quantification of looses within the instruments and in sampling inlets and creation of a data base.
Financial entity: Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain.
Funding budget: 2010 (24000€), 2011 (submitted).
Contract number: CGL2009-07128-E/CLI.
Length. Phase 1 (01-Jan-2010 to 31-Dec-2010), Phase 2 (01-Jan-2011 to 31-Dec-2011, submitted).
Number of involved institutions: CIEMAT (Centro de Investigaciones Energéticas, Medioambientales y Tecnológicas), AEMET (The Izaña Atmospheric Research Center), University of Huelva, CSIC (Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research), University of A Coruña and INTA (Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial).
Principal investigator: Dr. Francisco J. Gómez Moreno
Project title: Comprehensive assessment of the impact of particle emissions by automobiles on air quality (EPAU)
Description: The goal is to implement a methodology for assessing the impact of particle emissions by automobiles on the air quality. It is aimed to develop a methodology for assessing the impact of such automobiles emissions on the concentrations of the particle number, black carbon, PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations. The methods should allow assessing the influence of fresh and aged emissions on the size, composition and concentrations of particles in the urban air.
Financial entity: Ministry of Environment of Spain.
Funding budget: 201k€
Contract number: B026/2007/3-10.1
Length: 01-Jan-2007 to 30-Jun-2008.
Number of involved institutions: AEMET (The Izaña Atmospheric Research Center), University of Huelva and CSIC (Institue of Earth Science Jaume Almera)
Principle investigator: Dr. S. Rodriguez and Dr. M.M. Viana
Description: The objective is to implement a network for the study of long-term trends of the continental background in Africa and the intercontinental background of persistent organic pollutants as resulting from long-range transport of contaminants from European, South Asian, and other potential source regions, as well as by watching supposedly pristine regions, i.e. the Southern Ocean and Antarctica is designed.
Financial entity: Secretariat of the Stockholm Convention
Funding budget:
Contract number:
Length: 01-Jan-2010 to undermited
Number of involved institutions: Masaryk University, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Central and Eastern European Centre for Persistent Organic Pollutants, eAcademy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, AEMET (The Izaña Atmospheric Research Center) and other 9 institutions.
Principal investigator: Dr. G. Lammel
