Monitoring and measurements in global atmospheric science

In many ways global atmospheric science is observationally limited. Over the last 10 years or so advances in instrumentation and computing have increased the ability to measure, interpret and model the atmospheric system. As measurement frontiers have receded a burgeoning database of measurements from long-term monitoring to multi-platform international campaigns to satellites has been produced aimed at understanding a broad range of atmospheric science issues. This special section brings together a wide spectrum of papers across atmospheric science under the banner of monitoring and measuring in global atmospheric sciences. The range of papers represents a cross-section of the state-of-the-art measurements for understanding global atmospheric issues. We have engendered to take a one atmosphere approach bridging any artificial divide between troposphere/stratosphere. The measurements described have been taken from a range of platforms, whether it be satellites, aircraft, ships or from a range of ground-based sites.

Another aspect of this special section is to bring to the attention of the community the Journal of Environmental Monitoring as a home for papers in atmospheric science in relation to monitoring and measurement of trace species in the atmosphere. In many ways there is no natural home for much of the necessary underpinning work with respect to measurements and models in the current portfolio of atmospheric science journals. It is hoped that the multi- and interdisciplinary nature of JEM will appeal to those wishing to publish this type of work as clearly atmospheric science these days is rarely a monodisciplinary science. It is also hoped to develop JEM as a forum for news and views within the global atmospheric science community.

The papers in the special issue reflect the broad church of modern atmospheric science in terms of the range of techniques and platforms used. There are papers on radical (Bloss, Kovacs and Green), non-methane hydrocarbon (Hewitt, Hopkins), ozone (Godin-Beekman and Ancellet), carbon monoxide (Nicks) and reactive nitrogen compound (Melamed) measurements. There are papers showing the use of aircraft-based measurements (Ancellet, Green, Nicks and Melamed) and long-term ground-based measurements (Godin-Beekman, Yang), as well as the use of chemical models to interpret the wider meaning of the data (Yang).

It is quite clear from the papers assembled that undertaking research in global atmospheric science is holistic in nature from the scientific endeavour of building instrumentation, characterising/calibrating it, to collecting the data and understanding the technical and scientific limitations of the platform to developing and applying the tools for interpreting those measurements. It is our hope that this special issue captures some of the myriad of aspects and excitement of undertaking research in global atmospheric science.

Paul S. Monks

Department of Chemistry

University of Leicester

Leicester, UK LE1 7RH

Susan Solomon

NOAA, DSRC R/AL8

325 S. Broadway

Boulder, CO 80305, USA

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